Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6038082.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      War_and_Peace_(TV_2016), Voyná_i_mir_|_War_and_Peace_-_Leo_Tolstoy
  Relationship:
      Anatole_Kuragin/Elena_Kuragina, Fyodor_Dolokhov/Anatole_Kuragin, Fyodor
      Dolokhov/Elena_Kuragina, Fyodor_Dolokhov/Anatole_Kuragin/Elena_Kuragina,
      anatole_kuragin/_OC_(briefly)
  Character:
      Anatole_Vasilyevich_Kuragin, Elena_"Hélène"_Vasilyevna_Kuragina, Fyodor
      "Fedya"_Ivanovich_Dolokhov, Vasily_Kuragin, Ipolit_Vasilyevich_Kuragin,
      others_-_Character
  Additional Tags:
      Sibling_Incest, three_way_relationship, Partial_Canon_Compliance, Part
      AU, Tragedy
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-02-17 Updated: 2016-08-26 Chapters: 34/? Words: 81842
****** Under That Sky ******
by shadow_in_the_shade
Summary
     Sometimes the sky provokes epiphany but for others there is too much
     to do, too much life to be lived and when infinity does make itself
     known it is somehow remarkably unimportant. A fairy tale in reverse,
     and the prince and princess never get to marry however wrong it
     seems.
     This is probably going to be one terribly long fic, Anatole/ Helene
     centric but with a definite side of Dolokhov, starting ten years
     before the opening events of War and Peace and ending after its
     finale. Could be regarded as AU especially in the later sections.
     In relation to the tags - The MCD tag is just for canon MCD but
     there's for sure not gonna be a happy ending. Also I tagged for book
     because I'm using characters and book events that don't appear in the
     show and also the ending will have more of a chance of being viable
     in relation to book canon but I'm aware that my characterizations are
     more bbc than Tolstoy, hence the double - tag. :-)
***** Prologue *****
Under That Sky
 
Prologue
 
 
and the sky looks down and does not care.
There comes a point when the noise and smoke and the vibrations in the earth
fade away; a point where the head is throbbing from the cannon fire, so loud it
would be impossible to guess if those cannons were still firing or not. Some
say it grows quiet when this point comes, but it is not quiet. It is something
else; something that becomes surreal and impossible to define under the
remorseless glare of that sky that scrutinises so hard and demands that you
stare back, demands that you answer your life’s deepest questions and come to
terms with how small you are, how immovable, unchangeable, how fatalistic this
all is. That whole grey sky like the over-arching eye of god demanding you
believe, believe in something beyond the scope of your tiny life.
But he never thought of his life as tiny. How could he. He had been born to so
much, such privilege and so little responsibility. Now is the time he should
feel the weight of it, feel the weight of error and of his own smallness in a
grander scheme. The very sky demands it, shouts out to be the biggest thing in
anyone’s existence, riding high above the battlefield and the inability to
move, above the pain and the pounding and the steadily numbing sensation of
that pain becoming too much to bear. But he cannot see the eye of god, just a
misty covering of blue and grey like the eye of a young girl, wide and
watching. Watching him like he is wonderful, telling him everything he would
like to hear.
There was a girl once; trust him to think of it now. Wasn’t there? It seems in
place of an all-encompassing force there is instead and all-encompassing
she.Her eyes were not the blue of that sky, nor any sky. He found their
reflection in his own eyes; in the heavy smoke and confusion, she could be
him,so alike to himself he cannot quite remember if she exists. Is he, as he is
so often accused, just thinking of himself after all? Is it himself he has
always been in love with? It seems an easy mistake to make.
But he remembers a moment, a dream, lying on his back staring up at the sky
just as he is now. No, not just as he is now, a million miles away and worlds
away. Where were they? When were they? He is thinking of himself in the plural
again. He has been prone to that all his life; something beyond the easy plural
of childhood reminiscence, an unconscious wealways spoken in moments of
recollection even when the other is not there to reinforce it.
“Look –” she says, pointing. His eyes follow her arm to the tip of a delicate
finger – “That one’s a wolf heading straight for the sun.”
“I don’t see it – where?” the sun in his eyes, in her hair; he remembers it now
like diamonds, rainbows on her cheeks, the smell of meadowsweet and his
sister’s skin.
He scans the sky for shapes now, but everything is grey. If it will still be
grey when the smoke dies down, he could not know, could not say. The wolf has
got the sun in its jaws, and for all he knows the sky beyond the battlefield
could be red and dripping.
She takes his hand and makes him point where she thinks she is pointing
herself, pulling him around with simple, lazily proprietary gestures, like she
owns him, like he is any one of her toys and she just can. He does not even
argue with her.
“There!” she insists, with childish irritation, a sigh in her voice that he
could be so slow. She turns her head to look at him looking up, her hair
brushing the side of his face, smelling of grasses and her. His hand was in
hers in the grass beside them, fingers clenching and unclenching just for the
pleasant reminder of the feel of each other’s skin.
He reaches for her in the grass and mud of the field, fingers clenching and
unclenching, finding nothing but discarded weaponry and sludge. How old were
they then? On that day when she saw the wolf eat the sun? He wishes he could
remember, wishes he could think straight. He does not have the strength of
mind; he has never had her strength of mind. They were children, old enough to
be aware of each other but not old enough to quite know what their awareness
meant or foretold. It seems impossible that her hand is not within his reach
now.
“I still don’t see it.” He is too distracted; the sun is so warm and in his
eyes, making his head hurt and the earth just as warm and there is a wind in
the meadow that flutters her skirts against his leg and he wants to touch, to
feel everything that is so soft and close and on this day his, and on this day
he cannot see why it should not be his forever. Nothing is wrong and everything
is right. The sky is theirs, a toy to play with.
“Youhave to see it” she whines – “We see the same, don’t we? Wehave to.” It did
seem to him that she had to be right, that they had to be the same or be
nothing. He is just beginning to despair when he sees the jaws of the wolf
reaching in for the sun.
“I see it!” he announces – the teeth just there, like so,” he draws it on the
sky with his finger, moving her hand with his.
“Yes – and the tail there-” she draws it with both their hands; the sky their
paper, sketching out for each other dragons and fish, animals and birds a young
girl dancing and a drunkard asleep on a public bench. Later, she insists too -
a hussar fighting a giant on the edge of a cliff. He sees it all because her
eyes are also his.
He glares his challenge back at the sky now. I am not afraid of you, you were
just a toy; all the world is just my toy – our toy- his mind amends, they have
always been good at sharing. He wonders whilst the world falls sideways if he
is dying, if he will die here; he cannot even remember the name of this place.
There are bright lights behind his eyes and he has stopped being able to feel
his legs, bright lights like the sun in a young girl’s eye. He almost laughs
thinking about it; he will be remembered as someone for whom there were so many
young girls, when in truth there was only ever one. The sound comes out more as
a cough than as a laugh and soon after he hears voices and the thrum of feet
coming closer to his head, on the ground, in the field, in the smoke.
And the sky will try and have its say, will force him to make eye contact,
thrust some kind of epiphany upon him. It is still just a toy, even at this
end. He was given a suggestion of the world once, and deciding it was his right
to own it, has never given it back. Everything,he seems to hear her say-
everything is ours just to take.It is a lie, he knows, it was always a lie and
he will never forgive anything in the world for being disallowed the one thing
that would have made his life a happy one. He will not forgive that lofty sky
which demands he admit all his ignorance and his willingness to surrender
himself to the terrible new knowledge and truth of existence. Look at me,it
insists, know me now. But I do not have to,he thinks. I don’t surrender to you,
nor anyone but her. You are just a bauble to be polished into sparkle and
offered as a gift to the perfect girl. No, I don’t have to look at you. He
turns his face into the mud, happy enough to breathe it in, smell the rot and
dirt and blood in his nose and eyes. This is where he should be, he thinks, and
he thinks it with a kind of glorious happiness, a reality of life that raises
him above the cool, infallible, ridiculous sky. He has flown up there a hundred
times on the back of all the sensations of his life. It is not so far away, not
so untouchable, it is after all somewhat limited. Fuck the sky,he thinks as
consciousness departs him Fuck your epiphany. Give me something I can touch.
Give me my sister’s smile.
__x__
 
The timeline may jump around in a non - chronological manner from this point
onwards but I WILL normally tag for character and year at the top, this chapter
being the exception! Ugh, and I mean no disrespect to Andrey in this, I think
about his scene after Austerlitz looking at the sky almost every day of my
life; I've always wondered how different it could be for someone who had always
felt like they had really lived their life and been more or less happy with who
they were. Essentially, this is probably the fic I've needed to write since I
was 14!
***** Helene, 1797 *****
Hélène, 1797
 
She is the living cliché; the girl who does not like the company of other
girls, who is, if she is being honest, rather proud of the fact that other
girls do not like her either. She wishes to spend time with them about as much
as they do with her- or less. She prides herself above even other such girls as
herself, because she is not ashamed to admit to herself or anyone who asks that
she knows she is more beautiful than they are.
It is lonely, she has heard people say, to be a girl like this. But she, at
fifteen, is incapable of loneliness. She cannot remember a time when she felt
truly alone. Oh certainly at parties; in society, in the company of other
women, but never to any long term effect. Perhaps before her brother was born –
but as she was no more than three then, she does not delude herself that it
could be a time that she remembers. She only lies to people, she always says,
never to herself. She knows who and what she is and has been; who she will be
and how her life will be. It will all be so beautiful, so perfect. She is proud
of this too – her self-awareness, her essential honesty, proud and confident,
at the height of her arrogance in this, the last summer of her innocence; or
any such innocence as she still retains.
Innocence is such an arbitrary concept, she thinks; or a commodity. She is not
quite sure yet. She has heard adults talk about it in reference to a young
girl’s worth for as long as she can remember. She understands as far as she
can, that it has something to do with those sexual acts of which nobody speaks
to her – she understands they are not to be spoken of with anyone – but of
which everybody somehow hears anyway. Through this whispering she understands
it to be all caught up with a sense of shame and wickedness. She wonders if, in
truth, this is not where the loss of innocence really lies – not in what she
might do with her body but in how she might feel about it afterwards. Or maybe
it lies in having your heart broken; she has thought about this too. But she
does not intend on having her heart broken so she might, she thinks, stay
innocent forever. That such a thing could happen to her is strange and
unbelievable.
She thinks about her body and is intrigued by it, looks at herself in front of
the mirror to observe the changes taking place in her appearance.  She cannot
see how it has happened; it seems to her she must always have looked like this.
She wonders what she will look like when she is an adult, what shape she will
become. She is shouted at when her governess finds her looking at herself like
this, examining her breasts in the glass. She wants to ask if it is allsinful,
the whole body, or if it is only these breasts and the other changes that make
her wicked. Somehow she knows she cannot ask these questions and that she
should feel bad. But she does not feel bad, just angry at having been
discovered and cross that she is being shouted at. She wonders if this makes
her wrong, broken in some way. She does not feelbroken.
She knows too that these parts of herself, these fascinating places, feel nicer
when touched than any other part. She supposes she has done at least most of
the things the adults whisper about in silence with herself, and yes, with her
brother. They know that for some reason it is wicked to touch and have
whispered wonderingly about it, touching all the same, wide eyed and curious
that it feels so nice and is for some reason thought of so badly.
It makes no sense, they decide. They can come to the conclusion only that they
are right and everyone else is wrong. It makes a great deal more sense. After
all, they have some idea too that this is not even the whole of it, there is
still something more to do.
But in the last two years she finds herself being told more and more that she
has to spend time with other girls her own age and less time with her brothers.
They always say that – her brothers – though in truth what their time consists
of is mostly her and Anatole trying to lose Hyppolit, running off when the
three of them are thrown together, blinking at him silent and unnerving when he
tries to come in on their whispered talks. So often they find themselves
running off to hide behind a curtain, curled into the window seat together;
conspiring,people always say when they are found – though they never can
remember what it is they are plotting, only that it always seems very important
at the time. Hyppolit especially tries to break into their world, pull those
curtains aside and demand a share of the conversation. Neither quite certain
how it happens so in sync, they look up at him steadily; eyes wide and dark and
staring, looking at him in feigned curiosity so unnervingly that eventually he
always goes away and then they laugh and go on as though nothing ever occurred.
The first time it happens they even spook themselves.
“Did you mean to do that?” she whispers.
“What?”
“Like – like a cat staring down a mouse.”
“He isa mouse,” he laughs.
“Did you know I was going to do that too?”
“No –” he frowns – “And yes. Let’s do it again next time.”
They laugh, never able to explain why they find things funny, but then, never
needing to. She has heard that twins can read each other’s thoughts, react
together in identical gestures. She supposes they must just be like that. It
makes everyone else in the world rather invalid and dull.
But tonight she has been thrown together with some of Bezuchov’s nieces and
some other of their acquaintances, princesses, like yourselfher father said,
but it makes her lips curl knowing she is nothing like them -  and she finds
herself bored and superior, aware that wherever they are tonight her brothers
will be having more fun than she is. She has known for years that men can have
more fun than women and has never been able to work out the whys of that
either.
The princesses are lounging, none of them wholly comfortably, in Olga’s suite
in Bezuchov’s mansion. She has always enjoyed the over-sized opulence of this
house, if not the company she has to keep. The girls are talking – she yawns to
hear them – about boys. They are whispering as though it is very shocking that
they should be doing this. She feels herself too old for this silliness, feels
she knows it all already and more than they would ever talk about.
“Have you heard –” Princess Sophie laughs suddenly, as though imparting a great
secret – “About seeing your future in the mirror?”
No, what is that, tell us?
 Hélène yawns quite ostensibly, stretching on the chaise – longue, picking at a
gold thread in the green and gold brocade. She imagines it as a landscape,
wheat fields and twisting meadows in between. It seems so small, she imagines
herself flying high above it, pushing aside clouds and swimming through the
sky. Everything is small, she thinks, this whole world and these silly girls
most of all. Sophie is talking about how you look at yourself in a hand mirror
in a darkened room with just one candle flame and wish, and how if you wish
hard enough you will see the face of your one true love. The girls all giggle;
presumably, Hélène breathes deeply in an audible sigh – presumably because none
of them have ever been in love, know what love is or have any idea who their
one true love will be. Olga is teasing Sophie about wanting to see prince so-
and – so and Sophie is blushing and it is all quite unbearably tedious. Hélène
assumes her future to be inviolable, untouchable; to have everything just
exactly as she wants it like she can have everything else.
 “Let’s try it!” Olga is saying, getting up, as Hélène knew she would. She
starts to blow out all the candles apart from the one in her hand. The
gathering dark makes the girls giggle and they jump up onto the large canopied
bed, gathering around the silver hand mirror and the candle.
“You too, Hélène!”
“Mais non,”she pouts, assuming a more bored and languid air even than she feels
“ça mes egal, aller d’avant sans moi.”
She waves a hand airily, limp-wristed, knowing that she only alienates them
further with her superior French, and they roll their eyes at her and she hears
Julie whispering to Olga –
“She thinks she’s better than us,” and she shrugs visibly because she does
think it and is not about to repeat to them how little she cares, even though
suspects they did not understand her when she said it the first time. But Olga
is niceand kindand nudges Julie to be quiet, insisting to Hélène that she join
them.
“C’est vraiment ennuyeuse- ”she grumbles, though she lifts herself up all the
same, moving with infinite elegance and gathering her skirts so as not to catch
them on the side of the bed. The dress is new, pale blue chiffon and white
lace. She is wasted in this company “-  les hommes sont tous les memes.”
“Oh they’re not!” Sophie tosses her head – “Even you can’t say that.”
Hélène shrugs again, a curiously masculine gesture, and does not deign to
reply. She kneels behind the rest of them, only half watching. It interests
her, at least a little, how much they all pretend. They pretend to each other
in everything they say. She is only ever that artificial when talking to
adults. She does not understand, if these girls are friends, why they would be
that way with each other. Well, she supposes, she has a right not to
understand; she does not have friends. She watches them all one after the other
take turns pretending to be mysterious and surprised. Watches them thrill with
a mystery they are only dreaming up. Then she watches them also, as they
pretend to see men in the mirror and laugh and exclaim, tease each other about
who they might be and blush and laugh and blush.
“Helene, it’s your turn!” She knew it would come eventually and, rolling her
eyes she takes the mirror in one hand and the candle in the other. She feels
the warm wax, pliable beneath her fingers and the cool but now sweaty silver of
the mirror’s handle. She looks in the mirror and smiles at herself. How could
she not smile? She so enjoys what she sees. Her eyes are large and shining,
with tiny flames inside, her skin like porcelain, ivory, all the smooth pale
things that skin should be. Her eyes are like dark jewels in the snow, her
smile dark and glittering. Her smile is a shadow swinging with refractions of
glass. She is half in love with herself.
“Well?” the girls are twittering – “Who can you see?” She opens her mouth to
say I see myself  when the candle flame flutters from the girls moving about on
the bed and she is struck for a moment imagining her face, not quite as her but
still her own. Her face if she was a man, the eyes just a  little shorter, her
hair a little straighter, the same nose, the same smile, fuller lips, and
sharper cheekbones. She smiles, more secretive than before and holding close to
herself a truth she would never ever share with these idiots.
“I see myself,” she says, after a pause and it is true enough. It is all she
ever expected to see and she smiles in smug satisfaction to know what it means.
“Hélène –” Olga shakes her head kindly, a little patronising, Hélène is above
it.  “You love yourself too much”. She wants to laugh because it is close
enough to the truth but far enough away that any rectification would make these
silly girls die of shock. Perhaps she does love too much, but it is not
herself,not quite. She is surprised the mirror told her as much as it did. She
supposes she half expected even the glass to be shocked, but how could she and
her reflection ever be at odds; they were destined to be together always. Her
secret glows bright inside her, on her own in the dark, surrounded by other
girls.
She smiles at herself one last time and then shifts and the last thing she sees
before Sophia takes the mirror of her is only the candle burning in her hand
and burning in the mirror.
__x__
French reads: But no, I don’t care (polite) go ahead without meand It’s too/
really boring – men are all the same.
I was struggling with Bezuchov’s relatives and thought Catiche might be too old
at this point for playing silly games with the girls so gave them a random
friend instead.
Have just reposted this now beta'd cause I forgot to before. :-)
 
***** Anatole, 1798 *****
 
So, just in case it went un-noticed I’ve pushed the rating up to E – thought
I’d be able to keep it off longer than that but apparently not! TW for this
being rather underage. :-)
 
Anatole, 1798
 
He has been pacing his room ever since the others left. At first it was pure
anger, storming, throwing things, breaking things in the tantrum he could not
for one moment think of controlling. He feels as though he has been building up
to this ever since his sister started wearing long skirts and father started
showing her off to the world. She is not their father’s to show off, she is
hisand as with all the things he likes he is utterly unwilling to share.
Hélène teases him that minewas the first word he ever spoke. He is not sure if
it is true or not, if she was even old enough herself to remember, and he does
not want to betray his ignorance or naivety by ever asking her. Certainly she
may be right in the point she is making, if not in the actual fact of it. He
has never been held back from taking a thing that he wanted. He has always been
wide eyed, running with open arms, hands poised to grab at the thing he wants.
Every shining, delightful thing he has ever seen he has wanted to make his,
wanted it passionately and stubbornly, wild with enthusiasm, if only for a
season.
She is the only passion that has lasted, that has continued to hold sway over
him for more than a few months at a time. She has been there since he can
remember; the prettiest, most shining and delightful thing of all. He feels,
every time he likes anything, that he does so with a deep and almost
frightening love and he feels, with this same enthusiasm, that he has loved her
since he was four. One of his first memories is of the two of them sat on the
floor, sunlight streaming coldly through a window and seeming to pool in her
hair, throwing a shine all around her like the lining on a cloud. She was
wearing something around her neck that glittered and shivered rainbows across
the nursery floor. He was trying to tap at it like a cat, to make the jewel
swing at her throat and the rainbows fracture on the floor. She was batting his
hands away and laughing and he could hardly look at her for the sun and the
shimmer and the brightness all around her. Looking back he often thinks that
this was the moment he first fell in love with her.
There have been many moments since then. There is one that stands out in memory
for almost every year of his life. Pretty things have always been his greatest
weakness, and she is the prettiest thing he has ever seen, and as such it is
inconceivable to his sense of logic that she cannot be his and only his just
like everything else.
He remembers another ball, three years ago now. That time they had both not
been permitted to go and Hyppolite had lovedthat. He had ruled the roost for
almost a week with his sense of entitlement and victory. He had spent the whole
week ostentatiously choosing and talking about his attire and Anatole
repeatedly caught him talking to himself in front of the mirror, practising
poses and posture, his wormy lips muttering to himself. He had turned his older
brother’s room upside down until he found what he knewHyppolite was hiding
somewhere – a notebook in which he wrote down version after version of all the
jokes and witty things that he would say, teasing out all the words for the
maximum effect. He was so convinced that he would be more amusing than everyone
there. He had run straight to Hélène with the notebook and for days their main
amusement had been quoting his own sayings at him in the most ridiculous voices
until he realised what they had done by which time it was too late and they had
already written out all his notes in triplicate, Hélène doing the actual
writing and Anatole sticking them in choice spots all over the house.
Even so they had both been unbearably sore when the time came for their brother
to leave, all the more so because the ball was being held in their own house
and they could hear the sounds of music drifting up from downstairs. There was
a sparkling cold air coming in from the open door and if they crept to the top
of the stairs they could catch glimpses of the women in their evening dresses
and the men in their coats coming into the golden dazzle of the house with the
glitter of snow on their shoulders. Glimpses were all they could get before
being hurried back to their room. Hyppolite, instead of his usual defence of
just not talking to them, was being even worse than usual by talking to them
extremely condescendingly and charmingly about everything they were missing,
ignoring the fact that they were ignoring him and drifting towards the nursery
door and the excitement of downstairs like moths to the most delightful of
flames.
From almost the moment their brother left, throwing a condescending Good night
childrenover his shoulder, Hélène could see a storm brewing in Anatole’s face.
She could see that he was on the brink of one of those tantrums that he knew by
turns amused her, irritated her and made her actively angry – angry that
however violent they became, they were always essentially tolerated and he knew
she knew from experience that if she were the one to make any kind of noise or
scene all she would get would be chastisement and a lecture on manners. He did
not remotely understand why the difference should exist, but was glad he came
out the better for it. And then, when they were both angry about the same
thing, as was so often the case, he knew that she took a curious pleasure in
his raging – venting her frustration vicariously through him.
She clearly had no time for it just now, however. She knew the signs; the pout,
the way his forehead crumpled in the middle in a little frown line. Anatole was
a stormy summer’s day – quick to thunder and just as quick to break out in
sunshine. He was, Hélène had told him more than once, like a kitten that knows
it has done wrong and also knows exactly how to make itself so adorable that
all will be forgiven.
“Come on,” she said, decisively, taking his hand in hers and heading for the
door – “And keep quiet!”
“Where are we going?” he whined, dragging.
“To the ball, silly!”
He looked at her askance and, hard though it was beneath that little – boy
gaze, she ignored it, dragging him by the hand out the door and peering up and
down the corridors cautiously. She headed, not down the main stairs but around
a corner to where a shorter flight led to a curving balcony overlooking the
main ballroom. Nobody could reach it except from the way they had come and she
was sure nobody down there would think to look their way. Even so they stayed
in a shadowed corner, kneeling and peering through the bannister rails, not
knowing how much they mirrored each other, hands clasped tight in the centre,
each with another hand clutching fervently at a rail. They peered down intently
upon the scene below with hungry eyes shining.
“They’re all so beautiful!” Hélène breathed, entranced – “The women and the
men!”
Down below the ballroom spun beneath the grand central chandelier, the ladies
gowns fanning out in what became wide colourful circles to the watchers from
above. So many colours, like a treasure trove of jewels, cool and shimmering
ivories and silvers, warm golds and snowy whites. Everything all swirled
together like paint with pinks and blues and greens, peacocks and sunsets
spilling across the marbled floor.
“I wish wecould dance,” he heard himself say.
“I candance,” she tossed her head.
“So can I – somewhat – I mean I want to with you.”
“Well I don’t want to dance with you”she grinned, more flirtatious at thirteen
than she knew she could be – “You’ll step on me!”
“I won’t!” – that pout again! Sometimes it felt as though he was the girl and
she the boy – “I promise. Dance with me, sister.”
She rolled her eyes but stood up all the same, smoothing out her skirt as she
did so. They stifled so many giggles getting into position that it shocked them
both into silence when they started to dance and almost immediately fell into a
perfect harmony. It was not perfect dancing, they both knew it; often out of
time and out of step, but it did seem that even when they were, they were out
of step together. They flowed together like the music itself and when the music
finally stopped they stared at each other in wide eyed delight. A hundred
little quivers of emotion seemed to pass across Helene’s lips but all that came
out was a quiet, insufficient -
“I had no idea you paid attention.”
“I wish we could do that down there. We’d look beautiful.”
She shrugged as though this was obvious, though she took more pride in how
perfect they looked together than she would ever admit to anyone.
“Of course  we do.”
Suddenly they both started, hearing footsteps on the stairs; heads turning,
small startled animals.
“Quick!” she hissed, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him through a door
towards the back of the balcony. They got out of the way just in time before a
young couple walked through onto the spot where they had just been standing.
They crouched in the dark, hearts beating so loudly they could hear them, so
loud in the ears it seemed as though the people out there must be able to hear
them too. In truth she had misjudged and this was a cupboard not a real room,
and they found themselves pressed very close together in the half dark, the
door open just a crack. But the young couple were clearly far too concerned in
their own business to be paying any attention and the children jostled and
pushed at each other to be the one with a better view through the crack. When
the voices of the couple ceased and the purpose of their departure from the
crowd became evident Hélène found her cheeks growing warm watching them, and
kept slapping her little brother around the ear every time she felt a giggle
well up in him. But as the kiss outside their door deepened even he found
himself growing silent, fascinated and curiously uncomfortable in their
confined space. It felt for a while as though they were holding one another’s
breath through the strange little whimpers and sighs outside until the voices
came back and soon they heard the intruders receding.
Somehow, even now that they couldmove they found themselves not wanting to;
just looking at each other with wide dark eyes and a curious new awareness.
“Is that – kissing?”he whispered in a tone of vague awe.
“Quelle stupide!”she muttered, glad the dark hid the redness in her face and
that he was close enough to feel her nod.
“Have you ever –?” She pushed him a little.
“No, of course not!”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“I don’t want anyone else to kiss you.” He paused for a moment, frowning,
trying to work his way around a feeling he feared was too big for him.
“Do you want –”
“Oh don’t be so tiresome, Toto!”
“But Iwant to kiss someone!”
“Then kiss someone! I don’t care!”
It was not far in the dark and so close as they were already crouched to reach
his face to hers and kiss her, catching just the corner of her lip in the
clumsiest of kisses. She sighed and shook her head, sighed out his name in a
long suffering breath, took his face in one hand and bent her face to his –
“Slowly,”she whispered and this time he managed. He felt, even then as though
they were fitting together, just as they had when they had danced, that her
lips were both familiar and unknown and that he could kiss her forever. When
her lips parted their tongues brushed so shyly at first – he could feel the
warmth of her cheek against his - but there was no inclination to break away or
urge to ever even leave this cupboard not for the longest time. He felt as
though they might stay like this until the ball was long over and all the
people long gone. After a while she whispered his name again and it was like no
way in which he had heard her say it before. He offered her her own back in
reply and it occurred to him how little he ever said it to her. It felt like a
pledge, this exchange of names, a promise, as though he was saying so much more
than he could even fully think through to himself and that she was saying it
too, feeling whatever he was feeling though he was not entirely sure what that
was. He kissed her again after that and later admitted that he would rather
like to do that often. For once she had been the one to struggle for words and
just nodded in reply, chest heaving with a feeling that frightened her. He
understood; he was a little afraid as well. Not too much so to seek her out
every night or other night from then on, building every time upon what they had
started that day, knowing instinctively to keep it secret without any real idea
that it could be wrong.
And now he paces, fists tight, boiling gently with frustration and vexation,
remembering that night and how he had fallen in love with her again, wondering
if he is doomed to fall in love with her over and over again and nobody else.
He has changed since then – at least a little – learned that he should not feel
this way about his sister, but since he cannot fathom out a real reason why, he
has never even tried to feel otherwise. She has suggested whispers of wrongto
him, but even she cannot seem to follow it up with an explanation. He is not
hurting anyone and it feels like the best and sweetest, most delightful thing
in the world when they are together. So no, he will not change, could not, he
imagines, if he wanted to.
He has been promised that tonight will be the last he is left behind, though
this does not make him feel better just now. It is still the first that she has
gone without him and he feels tight, ribs aching as though something tying them
together is being pulled. He knows it would take more than distance to break
that connection, but that does not mean it does not hurt. Instead of feeling it
as hurt he feels it as anger. She could have refused to go, she could have
stayed behind. What if she finds someone else, kissessomeone else? Everyone
will tell her she is beautiful and it will go to her head. He does not want to
see her when she gets back. He has to see her the instantshe gets in.
Shortly after midnight he hears the carriage pull up and he leaps down from the
window seat. It feels as though he has been watching from the window for hours,
when it has only been moments, getting up and looking out and coming back down
to pace impatiently in a cycle for hours. Having jumped down, he stops himself
running to the door and stops for a moment, confused, not sure of his own
feelings or how he wants to behave. It is all of a sudden too complex for his
mind to handle. He gets back into the window seat and sits there, feigning
nonchalance in an agony of waiting, not even sure if she will come straight to
his room or her own. He squirms in the window seat, trying to arrange himself
in the pose that will look the most careless, the most relaxed, aware of
nothing but how tense he feels in every muscle.
He hears her voice outside the door first, something smooth and bright, catches
I promised I’d tell him about it –and their father rumbling something in reply.
Her off hand tone settles his mood into one of anger, convinced she is just
humouring him, and certain that even if she isn’t she is belittling him to
father with her choice of tone. When the door opens he turns his face
stubbornly to the window.
“Did you miss me?” she whirls in, a breath of dancing light and floating
optimism, buoyed up, no doubt by the wonderful time she has had without him. He
does not want to answer at first but is far too impatient to hold the silence
for long.
“No” he grumbles back, still not looking at her.
“Oh you’re not still sulking are you? How tedious of you.”
She has this air to her voice he is sure he has only ever heard her practise
before; something cultured and imperious – as though she really is an adult,
and not just pretending any more.
“No I don’t care. Go away”
There is a yawn in her voice when she replies;
“No. Come on, don’t be like that.”
“I’ll be how I want, stop talking like that.” He dares a side eyed glance at
her, eyes narrowed. It is a mistake. Something catches in his throat; she is
beautiful,almost unbearably so, her cheeks flushed from the cold and some last
quivering beads of snow shaking from her hair. She is taking her gloves off,
gently pinching at the fingertips, taking such ridiculous care. He cannot help
but feel irrationally angry at how many people have seen her like this; he
wants to look away again but cannot take his eyes from her bare arms and
shoulders, suddenly painfully aware of the shape of her and just as suddenly
sick at the idea of anyone else having touched her.
“Like what?” her eyes widen too innocently. He glares at her, turning around
properly to do so.
“Like a lady.”It comes out in a snarl – “Like you’re so special and I’m just
your annoying brother –”
“You aremy annoying brother,” she returns – “And you’re being more annoying
than usual. Do you want to hear about my night or not?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
He is. He wishes sometimes, not often, but at times like this – that she could
not see through him quite so easily.
“It was wonderful.”She goes on regardless, and he thinks he hears just a little
bit of spite in her voice, even of exaggeration – “Papa says over thirty people
asked me dance – I didn’t even have time for all of them. I hardly stopped all
night. You should have heard some of things people said.”
It is not just spite, he realises; she is riding high on all the compliments
she must have received, surging through the stars on a wave of her own beauty
and perfection. Somehow it occurs to him how fragile this sense of grandeur is,
how easily it could break.
“They were lying,” he aims and then fires – “You look terrible”. She looks at
him sharply and then just as quickly, looks hurt. He feels a quick surge of
satisfaction and jumps down from the window seat – it is easier to be near her
when she is not flying so high above him looking down. But then her eyes brim
with the hurt, and her chin quivers. She pulls herself back with a little jerk,
half turning –
“Well if you’re just going to be horrid –” she takes a few quick steps towards
the door. He crumbles inside, takes her arm, holding her back –
“No – wait – I didn’t – I’m sorry, don’t go – I just – you’re beautiful,” he
sighs it out, defeated. She does not make it easier, her smile back as quickly
as it vanished, twitching at the corners of her mouth.
“I know” she says brightly – “Everyone said so.”
“They can all go to hell,” he glowers. “They can’t have you –” his hand
tightens on her arm and he holds her tight, his other hand twisting in her
hair. “You’re mine”. He closes his eyes in relief at having said it, ready to
shake her if she does not understand. But when he opens his eyes again she is
looking up at him, eyes wide and dark, lips slightly parted in a perfect O of
understanding as she sees the man in her brother’s eyes for the first time. He
realises that he has no idea when he became taller than her but at some point
it has happened and here she is looking up at him, her wide eyes slowly closing
as the space between their faces falls away and he is kissing her fiercely,
like he has never kissed her before, and she is soft and pliant in his arms;
she has to be his, he thinks he might die if she is not. They kiss until she is
breathless with it and he can feel himself unravelling fast as her breasts
heave against his chest. He has to touch, to feel everything, lay claim to
every part of her and she whimpers when his hands move, touching her like he
has not dared before. When he presses a hand between her legs he can feel her
wet through the silk and she touches him back when she feels his hardness press
demandingly against her leg. None of this is new, but then it is and they are
both wide eyed and awe struck with the knowledge of where it is leading.
“I want –” he manages and she nods fiercely, aware that wherever the sentence
was going this was the only part he needed to say.
“Yes,” she replies – “Bed,” she adds. He reaches it before her and she stands
for a moment, wriggling out of her dress, never breaking eye contact as she
moves. He watches her as though she is a goddess, speechless for the first time
in your lifeshe will point out later, a speechlessness which does not break as
she gets into bed, straddling him and leaning over to kiss him, the fall of her
hair tickling him and obscuring his vision. When she does lean back he looks at
her and looks at her, trying to map out every line of her body, every shadow
across her skin. A dozen things crowd on the tip of his tongue to come out; all
of them too ridiculously sentimental to say to his sister. He can see his own
uncertainty in her eyes, the awkwardness and fear that is not going to stop her
for a moment any more than it will him. When her hand goes back to his cock he
finds himself forgetting how hard he was trying to be an adult and in control
of this and hears a desperate, half strangled pleaseescape him. She smiles in a
way he will never work out and unfastens him quickly as though realising both
her own power and how quickly he could come apart. He feels weightless, gone,
she is wriggling, moving over him and then dear god, she is around him, biting
her lip but sinking onto him slowly and he reaches for her – for anything he
can reach, wanting to touch and touch forever and dear God he is inside her and
it feels like coming home; like re-establishing something, like nothing he has
known and everything he has always needed, and it is impossible to last like
this for long before he is clutching at her, clutching at the mattress, her
hand firm and gentle on his mouth to keep the sounds from carrying and he
empties himself into her and he is sure later, his heart with it, everything
lost inside her in one short moment.
She closes her eyes and he watches a curious set of expressions cross her face
until she smiles, leans over to kiss him lightly  before rolling herself to the
side and settling with her head on his chest. Only now, putting his arms around
her gently, does he really feel like an adult again. He has heard people say
this changes everything, and he supposes that it does, and also nothing. Of all
the strange sentimental things that have crowded his head the thing to say is
obvious and inescapable.
“I love you,” he sighs it into her hair, and she makes a wriggle that is almost
a shrug.
“Yes, I love you too,” she says it in a tone that implies of course.She twists
her head, presses a kiss into his shoulder, finds his already hardening cock
with her idle, clever hand and rolls over onto her back, reaching out her arms.
“My turn,” she smiles, smiling and looking up at him dark eyed as though it is
a wonderful game to be played until they can both consider themselves the
winner.
__x__                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                               
Freaking out about this, nervous that Anatole is just 1, too young and 2, OOC.
But I’m hoping any OOC-ness is just attributable to age difference as I did
want to make him significantly different in certain ways, idk, just gonna close
my eyes and post!                                 
                                                                                                           
                                                           
***** Hyppolite, 1799 *****
Hyppolite, 1799
 
It is notjealousy. He convinces himself of it constantly. He just does not like
them. After all, he has the right, does he not? They are mean to him, ignore
him; actively run away from him if he tries to join in their games and
conversations. They stop talking when he walks into a room, looking at him with
the freakish synchronicity that makes him feel like an intruder. He cannot help
but feel a superiority that is surely more than just the three years difference
in age he has over his sister.
But it is unfair. Anatole, even at fifteen, seems to have everything he does
not; the looks, the friends, the disposition towards happiness and levity, that
easy good humour and life of idle carelessness that he as eldest has never been
able to completely afford, try as he might. And he has her.Boredom and years of
being ignored have given him room to see what everybody else is blind to. He
did not want to see it either, but he watches them when they do not know it and
it is unavoidable. He has been seeing it now for over a year and suspects he
was late to figure it out, thinking them too young and the truth too unlikely.
It is not the kind of jealousy Anatole thinks it is. The one time he thought to
make some sly hint at his brother he got laughed at and the most disgusting
implication made. He simply could not see his sister in that way and cannot
imagine how any brother could. He is not committing any transference of feeling
when he feels that they disgust him; instead taking pride in a deep sense of
moral superiority and quiet outrage. He keeps it quiet, has done these five
years since the idea occurred to him, determined to use the knowledge one day
to his advantage, but waiting for the right moment.
Nevertheless it isjealousy, albeit of an entirely different kind. How could
anyone not feel left out with the two of them constantly breathing in the air
the other exhales? And they are not pleasant to him. His sister barely seems to
look at him, and when she does it is with an air of lofty elegance and
patronising curiosity that always seems to ask him what he is doing in his own
house, let alone deigning to share a living space with her precious self,as he
once foolishly said to her. She had just laughed, that airy tinkling sound that
seemed to charm everyone around her and did nothing to him, and off she had
skipped calling for Anatole. She was always calling for him and he always came,
like a faithful dog, if it were not for the fact that he did the same to her
and she came at his call almost as quickly. They seemed to think nothing of
loudly screaming and laughing their way around the house as though it was not
entirely indecent how much time they spent together even if there was nothing
else to go on. Sometimes it sounded, when he spied on them, as though they
really were speaking another language, though he knew that Anatole’s concept of
French did not sustain him through an entire conversation. If Hélène had so
wanted to practise, he sometimes thought with an injured air – she could always
have talked to him; he was, after all, the more intelligent party. But it was
not that kind of other language.
Even when he does catch some of the words in their conversation, none of it
makes sense. Everything they say seems to be strung together from in-jokes and
references that have been taken down so many twists and turns already as to be
meaningless to the casual listener. He knew that they had at one time obsessed
over making up words, developing half a language that saw them through both
private and even public conversation. Unable to follow, Hyppolite came to the
conclusion this was the height of silliness. He would hear them talking about
events they could only have made up and can only wonder at the world they
inhabit. One stands out particularly vividly in his mind.
They had been staying at their country estate outside Petersburg; it was summer
and the air was silver and gold with hay and motes of sunshine. He cannot have
been older than fourteen. They had lost him in the high grass in the meadow and
he was busy not caring a bit, strolling through the meadow, hitting the tops of
the grasses and sending clouds of down and seeds flying off into the blue. He
was imagining he was the only person in the world, the ruler of it all, the
field all the way to the house on one side and the trees on the other – it was
as far as anyone could see and so it seemed, just now, like a perfectly
substantial kingdom. He was just starting to take pride in his solitude when he
heard voices, not far away from him in the grass, chattering voices, not quite
whispering but not quite loud either. He wondered why they did this when they
could just as easily run around screaming and laughing with what he often
thought was faked enthusiasm. It was as though there was no in–between state
for either of them; it was shrieking or whispering, never just talking like
ordinary people.
“You remember –” he heard his sister’s voice, the first intruder in his kingdom
– “It was the day we flew over the icefields. My horse was silver with blue in
his wings.”
“Mine was gold with copper and black.”
“And the stars were coming out and the sunshine and they were all the colours
above and below, you remember – we went all the way to the edge of the world
where the water falls over into the sky.”
“I remember. This could be the field couldn’t it?”
“It’s a lot likeour field. But the flowers are different and ours is more gold.
Close your eyes.”
Silence; for a long still moment with a warm breeze tickling the grasses and
then they giggle as though a whole conversation has passed wordlessly around
them.
The outsider hovers on the brink of their world, poised between infiltration
and retreat. Not a word of it makes sense, and for a while he wonders if they
are not both completely insane. How quickly, it can all go from a feeling of
being invaded to being the invader. Normally he would have disturbed them –
just for the sake of it, but this time he feels too great a sense of unreality,
a complete lack of comprehension of their words and the world they are
conjuring up. It is almost like witnessing something shockingly intimate – only
without him having the words to describe or explain what he has overheard to
anyone.
He remembers this now, that time he walked away; remembers with a strange sort
of shame and sense of failure. He is starting to feel too used to this feeling.
It occurs to him now, on the back of his last row with his brother, that there
issomething he can do about it now that he has seen enough to put into words-
even if they are words it will disgust him to say. And he knows who to say them
to for maximum effect.
He imagines, with a greater sense of sadness, a world in which he and his
brother could have been friends. They are not entirely without resemblance and
Hyppolite does not think he has always hated him. But Anatole – Anatole is
clearly to blame, ever since he was small he has not given his brother so much
as a glance or a word that would convince Hyppolite he looked up to him or was
even interested in him. He remembers being excited when he heard that he was
going to get a little brother, remembers that his sister had just turned her
nose up at the news. But in the end it was more like he had got another sister;
Anatole only ever followed his sister around, wanting to play with her,to
whisper secrets to her like another girl, to engage so deeply in feeling
everything that passed through his life that he did not stop to think about
anything and at the same time could not keep a single feeling to himself. It
islike having two sisters, or it would be if not for this one thing –
Hyppolite does not know how long it has been going on, and is not sure he wants
to. But he has seen enough to know they have long since overstepped any
boundaries of sibling propriety. They might even be in love,though he is not
entirely certain himself what that entails. It seems to him to have become even
more obvious in the short months since Anatole has been going out in society.
That it is hard to avoid the glances they give each other when surrounded by
other people. It makes him want to scream that those other people do not see it
too. People may whisper but they do not really believe it, just like their
father, whose worried glances Hyppolite has become quite attuned to – his worry
is an unformed thing with no real belief or proof to back it up.
He has not wanted to be the one to deliver this proof. Not until this last
altercation. He does not even know what they were fighting over now, just that
in the end, rather than shouting at him as Hyppolite would have liked Anatole
simply shrugged, smiled, offered up a lazy n’importe quoi,waving the whole
argument – and himself, Hyppolite felt – away and leaving the room so breezily
he would have liked to strangle him. It was so exactly like the outcome of any
argument he would have had with his sister that he is left feeling cheated out
of a brother for the thousandth time.
And so here he is, the words father, I have something to tell you, poised
smilingly upon his lips and all the last ideas of guilt he might have had
washed away and he lifts a hand to knock on the door of their father’s study.
__x__
 
***** Helene, August 1799 *****
 
Hélène , August 1799
 
Their father thinks he is good at keeping his expression neutral, and this
amuses her. She can see a gleam of smug satisfaction in his eyes when he thinks
he has succeeded. It makes her want to laugh – if they were closer, she could
have laughed at him for it out loud. She imagines herself as a different
daughter giving voice to a gently laughing, lightly loving oh papa!such as she
has heard from other girls. If she were different; if he were different. She is
uncomfortable in the presence of ifs.She wonders if they are a normal family,
if other people have normal families; if there is such a thing as a normal
family. She wonders it lightly but without a very great deal of concern.
He is doing it now; looking at them with that too carefully neutral expression.
She knows it can only be bad news, and has put on her own most guarded
expression, fixed like a mask. Anatole- never expecting or prepared for bad
news- just has his habitual sunny look of relentless optimism. It is a glow
that she basks in while at the same time it makes her heart sink; he is too
open, too trusting, she fears for him almost every day. She wonders if she
would be like that, if she were younger and a boy and if he would be exactly
like her if those roles had been reversed.
“You don’t have to be here,” their father says, looking at her; slightly
worried, she thinks.
“I know,” she replies and leaves it at that, doubting that he will press it
further. Strangely enough though, he does –
“This doesn’t concern you.”
That makes her reallyworry. She feels herself start to frown and tries to stop
it, stays where  she is, looking up at the prince with unwavering interest and
wide open eyes. For the first time in her life it does not work.
“Leave us”.
Finally, she allows herself to scowl. But she does not argue, she never argues.
She glances at Anatole quickly, forcing herself to smile; he smiles back but
she can see him wrestle with the first flicker of apprehension and then he nods
at her, barely perceptibly, and she knows he will tell her everything as soon
as he can. She can almost feel him squeeze her hand in reassurance without them
needing to do so.
Outside the study door she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she
looks up Hyppolite is looking at her from the couch with a curiously unpleasant
smile and an  I – told – you - soexpression.
“Oh shut up,” she sighs wearily, even though he has not spoken. He raises an
eyebrow, innocent, feigning hurt and she sweeps past him out of the room with
condescending dignity.
She goes to the library, taking comfort in the solitude of the large window
seat behind the green curtain. It is their favourite spot for quiet and
secrets, even since they got too old to comfortably both fit on this seat. She
curls in, holding on to a round velvet cushion, chewing one of the tassels and
trying not to think too hard. She does think too hard, thinks about what could
be happening – because something certainly is. She does not want something to
happen, anything to change; she is happy just the way things are, or would be
entirely so if she did not always have this pressing fear of things changing
and the troubling knowledge that they have to.
They had been upstairs, just ten minutes ago, drinking tea and annoying each
other, Anatole complaining that she took up too much of the sofa while she
pretended to be offended, pretending to hear an insult he did not intend. She
had too many limbshe said, and she sprawled them all over the place. She had
told him he was being ridiculous, she had just the right amount of limbs but
no,he said – they’re everywhere – like an octopus.He was just trying to
physically rearrange her to give himself room to sit down and it was just as
she was protesting –
“Stop it Anatole! I am not a cushion!” that Hyppolite had strolled in, looking
pleased about something. She had subconsciously sat up straighter, sparing him
a half bored, half quizzical glance whilst Anatole – much less capable of
pretence than she was – had looked rather guilty and sat down on the far side
of the sofa like a good child.
“Papa wants to see you.” Hyppolite seemed unnecessarily pleased at being able
to impart the information.
“That’s a first,” Anatole yawned, already bored.
“You’ve probably done something wrong.”
“Send you to fetch us did he?”
“Not her–” she had noticed a new tiresome trait of his later – to talk about
her as though she was not there – “Just you.”
“Well if you’re so eager to be a lackey to someone why don’t you fetch us more
tea while you’re at it, there’s a good chap.”
“Anatole don’t provoke it, it’s not worth it –” she shook her head
patronisingly, pointedly not looking at Hyppolite, amused with herself – “Come
along.”
“I said – but I said just –” Hyppolite tried to object as they set off
together.
“Oh shut up,” they had chorused back lazily and for the tenth time that day. It
had been alright, everything had been as normal but now –
Now she feels an uneasiness inside, a restless energy she supposes is most
unbecoming in a lady. Anatole is always a perfect embodiment of restless energy
and enthusiasm and that, it seems, is fine – it is expected in a man, while she
is expected to be still and serene and balanced – but not too much so or she
will be called cold. She wonders why societal expectations are so silly – for
men and for women and knows it can only get worse as she gets older.
It feels as though she has been waiting forever. She breathes on the glass,
looking down onto the gardens; draws the shape of the hedges in the mist with
her finger. She looks out at the sky, bored, wanting a dress the exact same
colour as that blue, thinking she would like that – to wear the sky, it would
feel so soft and light. She looks at the faint reflection of her face in the
glass, a pale ghost version of herself, touches her cheek with her fingers and
feels pleased that she is pretty, smiles at herself in the glass and her
reflection smiles back. She always expects it to do something else, every time.
She sighs.
She hears the door open, feet on the carpet; she wants to jump down straight
away, to run to him to ask what it was all about, not to wait for another
minute. But she makes herself stay still; it is hard enough to do and so she
practises whenever she can. It isAnatole, she had not doubted it, and something
in the way he slips in through the curtain and climbs up into the window seat
beside her makes her heart race with anxiety. He moves so slowly, with too
little of that usual jaunty air and there is a deep little frown line between
his eyes.
“What?” she lets it fall impatiently from her tongue – “What is it?”
“It’s –” he shakes his head as though trying to understand – “Father’s sending
me away.”
He says the words but not as though he has any conception of them, and he says
them with a smile that makes it all the stranger. She remembers an instance not
so long ago, they had been curled up in her bed, nose to nose and he had been
calling her all manner of awful and ridiculous names in the same tone as one
would usually talk to a particularly enchanting kitten.
“You can say anything to me if you say it in that voice,” she smiles, yawning –
“I don’t think I’d mind.”
“That –” he grins – “What we just did was terrible and horrible and I only ever
do it with you for practise – for when I find the perfect girl.”
“Beast!”
“You said I could say anything!”
“Yes but – that’s not true is it?”
“You’re stupid.”
“Anatole!”
“Of course it’s true, I hate you to pieces.”
“You love me.”
“No I – stop doing that!”
“You. Love. Me.”
“Of course I love you. I’m going to marry you, just you and me forever and ever
and ever.”
“You’re a fool. You know we can’t –”
“Stop it. Stop it – I don’t want to hear it .” He scowls, his voice darkening.
She sighs; she wishes just now and then that it was not such a struggle for him
to be serious. She is fairly certain that he hasnot accepted, as she
unwillingly has – that they could never marry. She finds herself bringing it up
more than perhaps she should in the hope that he will give her some sign that
he understands. She ends up just feeling mean and he never does seem to
understand. But this, she supposes - this could be her own way of ignoring
unpleasantness –
“You should, though –” she says, as though she has already said it once – “Any
time you have to tell me something unpleasant – you should do it smiling – and
in that voice – then it will never seem too awful. Will you?”
She thinks of that now. He has not had to try it until this moment and so she
wonders if that vague uncomprehending smile is for her sake or because he has
just not registered what it means yet. She is not sure the smile helps after
all.
“Away? Why? Where to? No I –” I don’t want you toshe wants to say but thinks
for a moment that if she can stop herself it does not have to be true.
“He said –” Anatole squints as though it is hard to remember – “He said I have
to go away to school – he’s sending me to Paris.”
“So far! Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Did you ask? I would have asked.”
“Of course I asked! He still didn’t say. I think – he implied I’d done
something wrong but wouldn’t say what it was.”
She bites her lip. She knowsand her heart sinks. But it feels to her like this
sinking feeling was inevitable; a part of her has always known this day would
come. Hyppolite told papa, he must have, she has always been wary of him, tried
to be discreet, but it has been so hard when her heart refuses to believe that
it has done anything wrong and she knows Anatole is even more of this feeling
than she is. He refuses even to entertain the concept of wrong. It is as
ridiculous to him as it is to her, but while she will not just leave it at that
and imagine in sunshine and ignorance that the world could just leave them
alone, he has been all too happy to imagine just that.
“You could have said no,” she swallows hard. She supposes this is unfair, she
knowsit is unfair and hates herself for trying to blame him but she hasto find
someone to blame rather than hate her father and older brother so badly she
feels like she could kill them – “Iwould have.”
“No you wouldn’t!” he catches the blame in her voice and gets angry in turn –
“You never say no to him.  I did.Do you suppose he listened? He doesn’t like
me. Or you, I don’t think.”
“Don’t!” she closes her eyes, feels tears leaking from underneath the lids. She
launches herself forward into his arms, almost sending them both falling onto
the floor. but he holds onto her and she presses her head to his chest – “Don’t
lets fight – I –” she is surprised to find herself crying but once she does she
gives herself up to it – “I don’t want you to go,” she says helplessly, giving
in. The words seem too small to cover the strength of the feeling but they are
the only ones she can find. They have barely been apart for longer than a day.
To think of weeks, maybe even months, hollows out her heart and she cannot
think of anything better to do than let herself cry.
“I’m – I’m sorry?” he says it in lieu of anything else and she shakes her head
because it is not what he needs to say and it is not for him to say. She cannot
blame him, try as she will and though she wishes she could do otherwise, she
does not really blame father either. Everything, she realises, is the result of
a hundred little things all stacked together in a badly built tower all coming
down to one pile of rubble. She cannot blame the stones for the collapse, just
sits in the ruins and brushes herself off.  
In the weeks that follow they do everything fiercely and more than usual. They
find themselves falling more and more often into long games of we could run
awayand when I come home I’ll marry you for sure.She knows that they are make
believe and finds herself able to enjoy the whimsy from this point of
understanding though sometimes she worries that he does not see it this way at
all, that at the time of speaking it he means every word he says.
And so they take long jaunts into their imaginary world, devising new
landscapes, creatures and adventures; this is easier because she knows he at
least knows this to be make believe. It saddens her when she thinks about it
that their games of run-away are just as make believe as this – and so she does
not think about it. They live everything in higher focus in this time, touch
and kiss and fuck like it is the last time every time, lapsing into melodrama
they would never usually permit themselves. Too much of the time they find
themselves fighting and this, like everything is more vicious, more feral than
before and now, with this deadline looming, it always ends in I’m glad I’m
going, I’m glad you’re going, I don’t care if you never come back!It hurts, but
it is, she knows, the only substitute for admitting the absolute reverse aloud
again. She envisions herself having hysterics on their father almost every day,
can almost see herself throwing herself at him crying and screaming and begging
him to change his mind. It is in these short weeks that she really learns how
to keep her hysterics on the inside. It would not help. None of it would help.
Their father – she wonders if he feels guilty – because she notices him smiling
at them more fondly than usual, being more than usually indulgent – dropping
into conversation as much as he can how short a time it will before Anatole
comes home – only three months from now until Christmas he says as though it
would please her.
Three months. It feels like a life sentence. She refuses to let herself say
anything so stupid out loud. Their father acts as though this is the beginning
of something wonderful, but she can only feel as though it is the end. Anatole
swerves violently between expressions of a similar sentiment and loud
assertions that everything will be fine. She is not sure which she likes less.
The night before he leaves neither of them can sleep, they do not even try to
stay as quiet as usual, overcome by a morbid sense of recklessness – what would
any of it matter now anyway?
“I’ll write,” she says, late into the night or early into the morning, she is
no longer sure.
“So will I. Every day.” She snorts.
“If you do, that will be more than you’ve written your whole life.”
“Well you won’t either.”
“I will. And you have to read them, I’ll do big letters.” They push each other
laughing, children again for what she fears could be the last time. She stops,
frowns, growing thoughtful, seeing in his frown the reflection of her own.
“What are you doing –” she has been tracing his face with her fingertips,
looking at him earnestly in the grey half-light – “Are you committing me to
memory?”
“No” she says – “I don’t need to.” But it is not quite true; she supposes that
she is.
“It’s not for thatlong.”
“I know,” she shrugs, says it too lightly – “I don’t want to say goodbye.”
“Then don’t.”
“You wouldn’t be sad?”
“I’d be sadder if you did. Besides you might cry on me. That’s nasty.” She
rolls her eyes, pokes him, grows serious again –
“Let’s never say goodbye. Alright?”
“Alright.”
She smiles. This makes it a little easier and she is ready to take a little
just now. She catches herself wanting to say If we never say goodbye you never
really left –but it is too whimsical, too much of a pretend. She feels, with a
kind of shudder, that it is the kind of statement that could come back to hurt
her someday. But for now she pretends it just a little and it is a good
pretend.
__x__
So, I originally wrote a substantially different bit in this where instead of
just imagining herself having hysterics about everything she actually has the
hysterics and lets herself scream and cry on their father and begs him not to
send Anatole away – but it didn’t seem entirely in character, not when I
imagine she’s been learning to keep her feelings under wraps for a few years
already now. I hope this works better! My beta is actively wailing at me for
hurting these poor babies.
Next time on UTS: Dolokhov!  :-)
***** Dolokhov, March 1800 *****
 
Dolokhov, March 1800
 
It had been a bad morning. Even if it had been a good morning, he would
probably not be in the mood. He was never in the mood for arseholes like this.
Idle days were the worst. Better when there was something to fight, something
to puzzle out; a mission, anything.Anything is better than listening to these
privileged imbeciles brag about themselves, about their lives, about the
abilities they do not, for the most part, have. The more they boast, the more
he knows he could never be one of them and the more he boasts in his turn in
recompense. This knowledge fills him both with pride and a regretful bitterness
it is hard to shake.
The day started with a letter from home; his mother’s current continuing ill
health, his sister’s continued solitude, but don’t worry about us, we manageshe
always ends it and it always makes him grit his teeth and wish that he could
hate them both- hating himself, hating the circumstances of his life that he
can never change quite as completely as he would like to, hating and hating
until he has to find a man to fight.
He thought he was going to get one, just after breakfast; and it sloshed
relief, like a good glug of vodka through him, down his throat to pool
somewhere below the groin. Shostakovich passing him in the corridor with some
new recruit, sniffing-
“Just something off the street, ignore him – worked his way up through the
ranks.” He says this last as though it is ever so disgusting, the condescension
laughing warmly in the air between them, directed quite clearly at him. The man
did not even care if Dolokhov heard; perhaps he even wanted him to hear. No,
Dolokhov knew, he did not want anything one way or the other. Filth doesn’t
have feelings.He had heard that too many times. Who cares if it can hear you?He
let it go a dozen times a day, does not want to be reduced to ranks for bad
behaviour. He gets into enough fights as it is. And he hasworked so damn hard,
the one man in the damn place that has, and a dozen times a day he wonders if
he has even got anywhere.
This time he leapt for the challenge, shoved Shostakovich into the wall and
called out a growling challenge. He did not even see the younger man, who just
laughed, backing off to watch from a distance.
“Watch the jacket, will you,” the man sneered back, barely concerned, shrugging
it back onto his shoulders from where Dolokhov had grabbed him and dusting
himself off as though he could catch something – “Never mind it eh? I don’t
fight peasants.”
He had held his head up as he always did, and stormed outside into the snow in
silence to  put a bullet in a dummy at least, firing rounds across the snow
until he ran out of ammunition. The noise and the faint smell of powder were a
little calming, but not very. He threw his pistol into the snow angrily,
regretted it, pulled it out and dried it off on the inside of his jacket; then
he stormed back inside. He supposed he could lie alone in his bunk for a while
until the familiar and repetitive rage wore off, as it always did.
He had just reached a point of being pleased by his decision when he got to his
bunk. To his lip – twitching disgust and unease, he heard voices from within.
This was new. He had never had a bunkmate, everyone finding every reason not to
room with him; which frankly suited him fine, even if it did nothing to improve
his relations with the rest of the officers. It occurred to him with a sinking
feeling that the new recruit must have been assigned to him, in the absence of
any other room to go to.
He did not care, he told himself, as he told himself two dozen times a day; he
did not give a damn. He swung the door open and slouched in anyway. The new boy
was slouched across his bed, holding court to a half dozen officers, bragging
as far as Dolokhov can tell about how quickly he had managed to get himself
kicked out of school. Dolokhov knew at the first half glance that the boy was
everything he had come to most despise; shallow, vain and as full of himself as
only privilege could make a person. He was probably titled. Either way he was
on Dolokhov’s own damn bed, inhabiting it as though he owned it.
“That’s my bed,” he announced unceremoniously, cutting through the laughter and
the boy’s drawling, self-satisfied voice. The dark, glittering eyes flicked up
to him lazily, and he found himself unnerved by the beauty of them. He pushed
it down. He was probably the kind of wastage who relied on that glance to get
away with everything, far too aware of his own appeal.
“There’s another,” he shrugged languidly, flopping a wrist in the direction of
the other, identical bed.
“Move.” Dolokhov was implacable; he would not have been in the mood for this
arrogant, beautiful child even if he had not had a bad morning to begin with.
He looked at that elegant wrist, feeling a surge of desire to break it.
“No,” his rival  let the word drop lightly, amusement flickering around the
corners of his mouth, watching Dolokhov now with intent curiosity in the way
one might watch an unusual animal perform a trick. The others had grown quiet,
the warmth Dolokhov had walked in on shattered, he knew, by his arrival. And he
did not care, was glad when they laughed, patted their new friend on the
shoulder and said they’d leave him to it. To Dolokhov’s satisfaction, he saw
apprehension flicker in those eyes and the boy’s mouth moved uncertainly –
“I say, don’t –” he began. Dolokhov could have filled in the rest – leave me
alone with this ruffian. But he stopped himself, seemed to think better of it.
Closed his mouth and opened it again to amend himself to “I’ll see you later
then, eh fellas?”
Left alone, he looked up at Dolokhov insolently. Dolokhov shrugged out of his
greatcoat, hanging it steadily on the wall, unhurried.
“Fight me.”
“Really?” A bored sigh, and a casually raised eyebrow.
“Really.”
“You reallywant to fight me over a bed?”
“It’s mybed.”
“The other one is identical.”He pronounced the last word slowly as though
implying that Dolokhov would not know what it meant, a tactic he was all too
familiar with.
“Your name?” he let his memory fall back to the new recruit’s announcement of
the day before; he made it his business to know these things, keeping them in
files in his head to be reached for where needed – “Karagin yes? Kuragin?
Something like that.” He knew damned well, but had long since learnt that
nothing irritated these people more than somebody not knowing who they were, as
though it was every man’s duty to know them and appreciate them.
“Kuragin”– with a surprising lack of the expected malice, but then – “Prince”he
added, pettishly, and as though Dolokhov would not know what such a creature
was.
“No doubt.” He had only really meant to think it, not speak it out loud –
“Alright, you’ve got one last chance – get off my fucking bed.”
“Oh, you didn’t ask nicely.”
“Get off my fucking bed, Your Illustrious Highness.”
“Make me.”
Dolokhov grinned. It was almost friendly. The same way that a lion’s grin is
almost friendly before it pounces. He grabbed Kuragin by the shirt front and
hauled him to his feet, slammed him into the wall and punched. The boy dodged
and his fist hit the wall. His second one did not. He was feeling better
already. For a few minutes it felt as though beating the tiresome princeling to
a pulp was going to be easy. He might even have felt bad about starting a fight
with someone younger than him if the boy had not been so despicable. He could
not quite remember afterwards how it had changed. They were on the floor and he
had the boy pinned, raining blows to the chest and that pretty, detestable
face. But his opponent was quick, spitting at him and scratching, fighting like
a girlDolokhov would say later, though if it was the case, he reckoned he never
wanted to get into a fight with a girl. Then there was a stinging pain in his
balls, doubling him over, giving his opponent enough time to wriggle out from
under him, drag him up and hurl him back down, crashing him into the bed that
had been the contentious point to begin with.
“You want your bed back?” Kuragin snarled, raging with pain and adrenaline –
“Fucking have it!”Dolokhov found himself ready to laugh when a tense, hard fist
went into his face. Kuragin was stronger than he had given him credit for, and
he could not help but appreciate this, even if he was the one now on his back,
the other man straddling him and pounding him with almost more recklessness
than he had given out himself.
It was not just recklessness, Dolokhov thought through the sharp, almost
pleasant beat of pain. You learned a lot about a man from the way he hit you,
and he was used to the typical savagery that lurked behind the mask of class
and manners; it had made him despise these people all the more at the same time
as helping him learn how to manipulate them. This was different- he knew this,
recognised it. This was not just a lust to hurt for the sake of it, more an
inability to stop, a brutal internal hurt and frustration that once riled could
not go unvented. It was not violence for the sake of it; more a scream of pain
in the only way men were permitted to scream. Unbelievably, it seemed that in
his own appalling way Kuragin had been wanting to fight something, to get
something out, just as much as he had that morning, and possibly for longer
than just that morning. He felt, with some alarm, that the boy might start to
cry and then, bruised and bleeding as he now was, he would have to be the one
to look after him.
He did not cry; just stopped finally, when exhaustion set in, leaning back,
with Dolokhov still pinned in a vice like grip between his legs, panting
heavily.
“You done?” Dolokhov grinned; he so rarely found himself in this position that
he supposed it would be lying if he said he did not rather enjoy the novelty.
Kuragin punched him one more time.
“I’m done,” he nodded – “You can have your bed back.” He said it cheerfully as
though, Dolokhov thought, he had not just pounded him into it. He closed his
eyes, wishing for a different choice of words.
“You beat me,” he said slowly. Kuragin smiled, getting up, walking steadily
over to the other bed and sitting down feeling his jaw, doubtless, Dolokhov
sighed inwardly, checking to see if all his pretty teeth were still in place.
“Yes,” he replied lightly, shrugging – “You started it.”
Dolokhov opened his mouth to object – to the childishness if nothing else. Then
it occurred to him that this wasstill a child and the child had just beaten him
in a fight. He looked up at the ceiling and started to laugh.
“It’s just a damned bed,” he grinned; it seemed all of a sudden rather funny.
To his surprise, Kuragin seemed to see it too. He stood back up, extended a
hand. Dolokhov used the proffered arm to pull himself into a sitting position.
“Anatole,” the young man said, almost but not quite apologetically- “Anatole
Kuragin, never mind the title, eh?”
“Dolokhov,” he grunted back – “Fedya Dolokhov. Take a drink with me?”
Anatole smiles and Dolokhov finds himself wanting to look away. It is
disturbingly adorable that smile, the most curious mixture of real and fake. It
seems hard to believe there could be anything half way sad let alone tragic
behind that smile, but at the same time it suddenly strikes him as hard to
believe there could not be. An arsehole like this, he thinks, could be easy to
fall in love with whilst never forgetting that he really was an arsehole.
“Yes,” Anatole says mildly, inclining his head in just the smallest fraction of
a polite gesture, as though they had not just beaten the living hell out of one
another – “Alright.”
__x__
So, there is another half to this chapter but it was getting really long and I
have a Helene chapter coming, set parallel to this one in the time line and
which bridges the gap between this point and the previous chapter. So I’m
splitting this into two with hers in the middle, I hope it works! :-)
***** Helene, March 1800 *****
 
Ok so this chapter went so much more miserable than I meant it to and even
though I don’t see Hélène as the depressive type bits of this start to glide
close to what depression can feel like so trigger warnings for that and
apologies and promises that it won’t last past this chapter.
 
Hélène , March 1800
 
When Anatole comes home for Christmas and she is not there to see him, she
begins to understand and to despise her father more than she thought she even
could. It is all so artfully done, there is no way she can think to get around
it that would not be entirely incriminating. She has known for weeks, from his
letters – and their father has said the same – that he will not be coming home
long, only for some ten days from the 21st onwards, and had already worked out
that the brevity of the visit was papa’s doing. So then when it is casually
suggested to her in mid-December to spend Christmas with great aunt whoever at
their country estate outside Moscow, any objection she could come up with would
have seemed painfully transparent. The princesses Olga and Sophie are going and
a great deal of important people; her aunt is renowned for the splendid
Christmas she can put on and doesn’t she know her second cousin Pavel will be
there, a charming young man and well connected; and she is not sure if she
feels more like laughing or screaming at the ridiculousness of it all.
In the end she just blinks at her father, partially because she knows it to be
disconcerting and also because she knows how much she can force back with that
quick closing and opening of her eyes. She has been doing it for years,
originally to push back tears, and is so used to it now that the tears no
longer bother threatening to come. It no longer unnerves Papa as much as she
would like; he just smiles and says she remembers second cousin Pavel, doesn’t
she, he’s been looking forward to seeing her again when he comes home.
This strikes her as such a monstrous thing to say she can barely control
herself, can feel her chest heave at the injustice of such a statement. The
words looking forward to seeing herespecially ring so brazenly in her heart
that she can feel it tighten there as though something might snap. But in the
end she smiles prettily and replies –
“Yes, a lot of young men are coming home for Christmas aren’t they?”
She looks at him fixedly, eyes burning until he has the grace to look awkward
and turn away, avoiding her stare. Only then does she ask if she may be
excused, and sweeps out without waiting for a reply. It is as rude as she can
ever afford to be. She has known since she was ten that every expectation
anyone has had of her has depended upon her position in society, in the way she
comports herself and who she pretends to be. She has been honing her skills in
these pretences since even before then and it confuses her to hate having to do
it whilst at the same time taking pride in how good she is at it. She almost
likes it – working people’s perceptions of her. She feels remarkably
disconnected from it; knowing how she is perceived whilst at the same time
knowing herself to be something entirely different. She knows this separation
of self and appearance leads most girls away from an understanding of
themselves, cutting their minds off from their bodies and hearts and having no
idea of who or what they are. It is not like this for her, and for this reason,
as well as everything else, she knows she plays the game better than they do. 
She is well aware of who she is – it is the whole of society, all of those
shimmering ribbons of social flux that she can spin so deftly through her
fingers, that she is disconnected to. She supposes a girl must be a glittering
silk thread weaving into the pattern of the world but, she prefers to be the
hoop holding it all together. Perhaps that gives her an over-inflated sense of
self-importance, but she decides that she deserves it.
When she leaves her father that day she walks briskly to her room, sits calmly
in a chair in front of her mirror and puts her face in her arms and cries. She
cries almost mechanically and because she knows that she has to do something to
let all of this – this tight burning awfulness out of her heart. She cries
until her shoulders ache from shaking and she feels sick and weak and empty.
When she looks up again she feels washed out and faded and she hates the way
she looks in the mirror, eyes red and cheeks blotchy. I’m done,she thinks; I’m
done, I won’t do this anymore. I can’t.She feels as though she has cried every
day for three months. It is exhausting and dull. She rubs her eyes, dabs a
cooling cream underneath them and into her hot cheeks. So this is how it’s
going to be,she tell her reflection sternly –this is how it will be – they’ll
keep chipping at me over and over until there’s nothing left and half of me is
really gone.She shakes her head, tries to convince herself this is an
exaggeration, that she is just being silly. She wonders what Anatole would say
– she knows he would tell her not to be silly, that it will all be well in the
end, that things always turn out well. She looks at her reflection sharply as
though it speaks to her in his voice –sister dear, don’t be so silly.
But she thinks it one more time – this is how they come at me,and a little
whisper beneath it sneaks up from her heart, ridiculous and dramatic –this is
how I die.Stupid, she tells herself – she is seventeen and too young to feel so
old, so used up. She has spent too much time of late alone and talking to her
reflection. She thinks about refusing to go and knows that she cannot, thinks
about cousin Pavel and this latest in a long string of attempts to marry her
off. She has always known, above all other expectations, about the necessity of
her marrying well. It is a weight around her neck, one she sometimes feels
dragging her towards madness. She wonders, for the thousandth time, if madness
is where she is now, talking to her reflection for lack of anyone else to
understand her. She smiles, knowing she has no intention of marrying; not for
as long as she possibly can and that the better she plays this game the longer
she can hold it off. They can only almost force her, never quite succeeding.
She glares at her reflection and hardens her heart into the decision not to cry
any more. She can almost hear a crack of ice creeping in.
She thinks about Christmas, about the dazzling round of parties and
engagements, paying calls, smiling and laughing and flirting with cousin Pavel.
She knows that she will do all of these things. She wonders if she could put
her heart into her flirting for once and takes pleasure in knowing she makes a
good enough show of it that everybody thinks she does that already. So much so
that she has a reputation for merriment and flirtation that people almost speak
of disapprovingly – but it the kind of disapproval that comes with so much
affection and respect that she is glad of it. She thinks about trying to care,
trying to see something in any of the boys they throw her together with. She
determines that she really will try. Will try and make herself feel something
real.
She tries not to think of Anatole’s face when he gets home and finds that she
is not there, that he will not see her for at least another three months. She
knows that the idea of another three monthsis the worst he will allow himself,
knows it will not occur to him as it has to her that their father means to do
this for as long as he possibly can. She knows herself that it will not be
forever, although that hope is as terrible as it is comforting. Hope does
nothing for her; it just makes it harder to turn herself more fully to stone.
It keeps her alive and keeps her hurting. She wonders when she became so
morbid, so depressed; it does not feel like her, more as though a sadder person
than she should be has taken up residence inside her. She shuts herself off
from it, like everything.
This too, she knows, will not last. Nothing lasts forever and thinking as she
is just now, that cheers her.
She canpicture his face though, all too well, and shutting her eyes as she does
entirely fails to help. He will fall so fast from being excited and happy to be
coming home to being bitterly disappointed and this in itself makes her chest
flip sickly. He will ask after her with all that capacity for hope shining in
his eyes, and then perhaps become angry with her for not being there. He will
swiftly switch himself into not caring; only she knows he can do it far more
for real than she can. He will just go away at the start of January ever so
slightly bitterer than he was before. She wishes she could care about someone
else. Not for the first time she wonders what is wrong with her that she simply
cannot. If there were someone – someone who took one look at her and saw
straight through her and loved her all the same, who did not think that to love
meant to possess, someone she could talk to about everythingand he would hear
her and understand.  She fixes her smile in front of the mirror and keeps it
fixed the rest of that day. She wonders if he will still bother to write to her
after she has let him down like this, and becomes so certain that he will not
that she determines to flirt with Cousin Pavel in the greatest of earnestness.
When she does receive a letter from Paris a week into January she feels bad for
her doubts, bad for the bitter but almost real fun she made herself have over
the Christmas season. It is a strange letter for Anatole and the angry
sentences snap across her chest like tight strings cutting her.
I’m done with this.It reads, with no preamble, just angry letters dashed out
fast – This is –a choice selection of colourful phrases not all of which she
can quite make out. What the devil happened? Nobody even told me you’d be gone
until I got home and then they never said you’d be gone the whole time. I only
came back just to see you – should have stayed in bloody Paris! The hell is
papa playing at? He said you’d asked to be away but you hadn’t – had you? Why
would you do that? He was lying, wasn’t he? He says you’re practically engaged
and I don’t believe it. Don’t be. I won’t – I can’t –
There was an angry mess on the page and a block of black scribbling where words
had been repeatedly crossed out. She could make none of them out.
I don’t want to stay if it’s going to be like this. I’ve got a plan!Her heart
sank. I’m going to kick up a storm here, make as much trouble as I can until
they kick me out of school and then I’llhave to come home, there’ll be nothing
else for it. Don’t marry, don’t you dare.
“Oh for god’s sake Anatole,” she groans out loud, beneath her breath, folding
the letter in her hand. It is all so simple for him – and she knows that once
an idea occurs to him nothing on earth will convince him otherwise. He never
imagines, not for a moment, that any plan he is clever enough to come up with
could go awry, that there is any other possible outcome to his actions than the
one he wants. For her, every possible outcome other than the one she wants
occurs to her as a possibility before she can begin to entertain the idea that
it might turn out well, and so it comes as no surprise to her when over dinner
a few days later their father announces that Anatole is being removed from
school and put into the army. She just smiles and nods and lets him think it is
in agreement with this course of action rather than simply confirming to
herself that this is what she knew would happen.
She writes back, of course, writes that she would not condone his bad
behaviour, that it probably will not go the way he wants it, that papa seems
adamant on keeping them apart. She writes that she is not engaged, of course
I’m not engaged! That’s the stupidest lie of all!She writes again and again how
sorry she is that she was not there.
His next letter is softer and begins with My dearest sister.It talks a little
of his transference to the army but, like her own letters, seems more guarded
than before, more afraid of showing emotion. She wonders if it is because he
trusts her less than he did or if he, like she is, is just protecting himself
from feeling too deeply. We could run away,he writes and she sighs –or you
could.She is not sure if he means it or not and decides to take the safer
course of action and treat it like a game as they always have done. When she
writes back it is in the way they have always talked of such things, making
strange and overly fantastical plans so that he knows it is just pretend and to
her relief he understands, writing when he does – and it is of course not every
day as they said they would – in the same vein.
Their letters become less frequent than they were before. She confesses in one
of the last serious ones that she sends that his letters give her such joy that
after reading them she finds herself feeling worse than ever, because she can
hear his voice in the words and imagine him here so hard. It feels like she
should just be able to reach and out touch him and then feels cold and prickly
when she cannot. He admits to her that it is the same and so they take refuge,
as they always have done, in make believe and endings to their story that can
doubtless never be.
And day by day she finds it does get easier. She sparkles everywhere she goes,
glittering in cold pride at her own splendid individuality. The brilliance of
her smile is fuelled and sharpened by a strange sadness and anger only she
knows she possesses, but who could care when the outcome was so exquisite. Even
she is fooled by herself, at least until she finds herself alone in bed each
night. Every night she rolls over onto her side, stares into the dark half
smiling, waiting for the familiar pressure of a tug at the sheets behind her,
the familiar press of weight against her back, his nose pressing into her
shoulder, his smile curve against her skin. Night after night she wriggles back
in expectation of being joined, of that comforting arm curling easily around
her, pulling her close while she grumbles and pretends to hate it. She can hear
their voices echo in this room, his whining but sister!and her own happy
grumble of objection go away, stop bothering me, aren’t you too old to be
scared of the dark?She misses his eternal excuses that they both know amount to
nothing.
Try as she might she cannot stop expecting it all, even when night after night
it does not come.
__x__
Sometimes I like to hurt myself and others. Sorrysorry.
***** Dolokhov, March 1800 *****
 
 
Dolokhov, March 1800
 
Anatole gets himself quite ridiculously drunk in a ridiculously short amount of
time, stubbornly insistent upon matching Dolokhov drink for drink. Dolokhov
tries to slow him down, aware that while they may have only a few years between
them in age he is far more capable of holding his drink than he perhaps even
should be. He has had to be; he still remembers the days he could not bring
himself to get out of bed without a drink, days when the burn of bad vodka was
the only way of keeping warm. He still feels warm from the drink but is
generally a great deal more sober than he would have people believe.
“Seriously though – you  need to stop that –” Anatole appears to be attempting
to finish a last quarter bottle of neat vodka without pause. He glares at
Dolokhov over the drink and flips him a vicious gesture with his hand. Dolokhov
shakes his head, smirks and sighs; it won’t be long before he regrets it, he
knows. The boy is stubborn, he has to give him that, and he finds himself
horribly dizzyingly distracted by the sight of those lips around the bottle
neck, shining in the dim light with vodka and sweat. The bottle flies across
the room, empty, hitting the far wall, Anatole raising his hands and cheering
himself vocally.
“Yes, and you need to stop that too – who do you think’s going to clean the
glass up, hey?”
Anatole looks at him as though he is quite mad.
“Yes that’s right,” Dolokhov sighs, closes his eyes, “there’s no servants here.
Think you can hack it?”
Anatole shrugs, though something flashes in his eyes that Dolokhov suspects he
would be able to control if it was not for the drink.
“Doesn’t matter if I can or not. I didn’t choose to be here, you know.”
Thatat least does come as a surprise. It occurs to him that he has perhaps
built up too many assumptions about these peopleand how alike they all are. He
has always supposed they don’t do anything they don’t want to do. He does not
say any of this; unlike most people he meets, his brain runs ahead of his mouth
and he has already moved on to trying to figure out the reasons why this
spoiled brat of a boy would be here if he did not want to be before he has even
fully processed the idea of a fallacy in his own assumptions.
“What did you do?” he raises an eyebrow as though he does not really care, more
curious though than he would like to let on.
“Eh?”
“Well you’re here and you don’t want to be – so what did you do to piss off
papa?”
“Nothing,” Anatole shrugs, and bends over quickly to pick a fresh bottle off
the floor; but he looks at Dolokhov too suspiciously over the glass and is
unable to hide a flush across his face.
“Oh come on. We’re here, we’re pissed, you just beat the crap out of me and –
nice going by the way –”
“You started it.”
“Shut up. I wasn’t complaining. I can tell when a fellow’s got something he
needs to get out. So what –” Dolokhov decides to take a gamble – “Who was she?”
The look Anatole flashes him is like a dagger thrown across the room.
“What makes you think there’s a she?”
“He then?” Dolokhov raises his eyebrows; could that actually be it? This was
getting interesting.
“Ugh, God no! That’s – I’m not – that’s disgusting! Now shut up, I don’t want
to talk about her.”
Dolokhov laughs, watching the boy close his eyes in realisation of what he has
done, watches the grimace spread across his face, twitching the corners of his
lips, curling them and moving on to twitch the edges of his eyes.
“No, let me guess – you got her into a fix, am I right?”
“No! Oh god – no I hope not.”
“Her family hate you? They won’t ever let you see her again.”
“Her family –” Anatole laughs bitterly; it is amongst the least pleasant sounds
Dolokhov has ever heard. “Her family loveme –” he looks down at his boots,
shaking his head, clearly finding something genuinely but painfully funny in
the question. “They just don’t like me very much.”
“So, what? She’s too lower class for you? She’s some kind of whore –” Anatole’s
fists clench and his lips twist in a snarl so fierce and so sudden that
Dolokhov is almost alarmed –
“Don’t you fucking call my –” he bites something back so hard Dolokhov can see
his teeth clench; he wonders if the boy might not just take up their fight all
over again – “Shut up Dolokhov. Just shut up, alright?”
“No. I’ve got it, you won’t marry her because you’re too up your own arse about
your position in society, but you’ve been sent away because you won’t stop
seeing her either, is that it? Because if you’re just refusing to do the
honourable thing by a girl just out of some pretentious snobbish sense of
status I’m gonna have to re-think my re-think of you as a complete arsehole.”
“It’s not that – it’s –” Anatole glares at him, and there are few things
Dolokhov likes more than seeing someone really not want to talk about whatever
it is they then do not seem to be able to help talking about anyway. He likes
this. Getting to the grain of people, working them out, finding the truth
behind all of their lies. This time he even feels a little bit bad about it.
“She’s not lower than me, alright? She’s the same, exactlythe same; will you
please shut up about it now?”
He is not a monster. He realises that even pronouncing such a word as pleaseis
almost appalling for a boy like this. He accedes defeat with a half nod and
wave of the hand, picks up another bottle of his own and raises it across the
room in lazy salutation.
They drink for a moment in silence; Dolokhov realises it is necessary; that he
can only push this one so far. He is weak, young, not incredibly clever but
skilled, he thinks, at appearing to feel things less deeply than he does. He
can imagine what a powder keg that could be, and while he wants to poke and
prod he does not want to actually blow anything up, not yet.
“So how do you plan to get by?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re in the army, a place in life I suspect you’re not going to exactly
excel at – did you think about how you might survive it?”
“I – well I suppose I counted on doing as little as possible and getting by
unnoticed.”
“You might –” Dolokhov cannot believe he is saying this – it is the most
predictable, elitist reply Anatole could have made and for himself he has never
been able to understand or get away with as little as possible.But for the rest
– “You might want to stick with me,” he finds himself saying.
Later that night, or more in the small hours of the morning, Dolokhov lies in
his bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep he has become so unused to
having to share a room. He always tries to be aware of the other people around
him even if he cannot see them, and while he cannot now see Anatole in the dark
he is almost certain that he is also lying sleepless, staring at the ceiling.
“Hey Anatole,” he says into the stillness of the room.
“Yes?” comes back, dreamily on a cloud of vodka breath.
“Is she pretty?”
“She –” Anatole does not try to deny her existence this time, too half asleep
and, from what Dolokhov can hear in his voice, too sad – “Oh yes,” he replies,
smugness laced with sadness. “She’s beautiful. The most beautiful girl I –” his
voice breaks. Dolokhov rubs at something he is sure he can feel in his eye.
“You love her”.
The longest silence and then;
“Like I love myself,” Anatole replies, the words sounding like they come from
deep down and from miles away, over a span of so many months gone without
speaking about her, trying, from what he can guess, to forget all about her.
“She’s part of me, Fedya, she’s –” it does not go unnoticed that this is the
first time in all their conversation so far that Anatole has used his first
name, but it is drowned out by the strangeness of what he says next.
“She’s my reflection.”
It is such a strange thing to say Dolokhov cannot at first grasp what he could
mean by it and then, slowly, a crazy sort of understanding trickles into his
mind, the most terrible hint of an idea and without really knowing, even, if
such an assumption can be right he feels his heart sink for the both of them.
__x__
I feel like if there’s an end - of – part – one to this then this is it!
 
***** Anatole, Christmas, 1801 *****
Anatole, Christmas, 1801
 
“What are you thinking?” Dolokhov asks, and he drags his eyes from the carriage
window to meet those of his friend. He was trying notto think. He was looking
at the trees as they went by, numbing out his mind with his forehead on the
cool glass, watching the sun on the snow and thinking- as much as he was
thinking- that this- this is home. He is glad he has come back to Russia in the
winter, with the sun dancing off the snow like this and this white sky and the
smell in the air, frost and leafless trees, sharp and good like a stiff drink.
“I wasn’t,” he replies and Dolokhov’s eyes narrow a little, because he can
smell a lie at a hundred paces. He smiles at his friend and feels a sudden
great rush of affection, pleased that he is coming home with this – the one
good thing he has found since leaving. He shakes his head –
“It’s been a long time,” he amends, and it has. Two years – more than two
years. He was fifteen and a boy when he left for the first time, and those
brief occasions that he has visited since have not felt like coming home as
they should have done. He knows all too well why and cannot help but be
apprehensive now. It is an unusual emotion for him and he is wary of it.
“Nervous?”
“No,” he says too quickly, scrunching up his face in disgust. “Of course not.
Don’t be stupid.” Dolokhov smiles, too knowingly, and Anatole looks away. His
heart is a rattling beat of excitement thudding in time to the carriage wheels
but at the same time he is suspicious – what if it’s just like the last time
and the time before? What if she isn’t there? What if she doesn’t care
anymore? What if she really is married after all?
It was unexpected, the invitation home, after all this time. He has never been
so good at looking ahead or planning, better at adapting to whatever was
currently occurring to him and so, even though it should not have been a
surprise to know that he could just come home now that he was fully an adult it
still is.  And to know that he does not have to leave soon this time – he has
not really begun to work through everything it could entail.
It was Dolokhov who pointed it out to him, of course. He had been terribly
drunk – well, they had both been, though Dolokhov never seemed to be affected
by it like other people were. On the night of Anatole’s eighteenth birthday
when they found themselves alone in the early hours and struggling into bed.
That was the moment Dolokhov chose to tell him he was going home to his family
for a while; it had been over a year for him as well after all. He had scowled,
as the information crept slowly into his inebriated brain, and pouted when it
began to make sense.
“But – I say, must you? I shall miss you, you know.”
“Well, why do you have to?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come with me.”
“I –”
“Of course you can. You’re eighteen now. Write home and just tell them you’re
coming. They can’t makeyou be anywhere anymore.”
“But –” he had stopped, frowned. It was true, and after all he had not even
tried to come home in a year, those early visits had left him with such a sense
of dissatisfaction, almost betrayal that he had decided to not even try. Hélène
had sent him a furiously angry letter about it, which he had ignored and in the
last half a year she had barely written at all.
But then, with this new understanding dawning on him, he had written home and
been surprised to get a letter from father expressing not only willingness to
have him back, but he seemed actually pleased to hear from him. Leaving it so
long seemed to have had an effect he had not expected. The only downside was
one he could not even bring himself to mention to his friend.
“She didn’t reply, did she?” Dolokhov says now, as though reading his thoughts.
It has been comforting – having someone else who can do this. His sister had
always known what he was thinking, and he supposed he has grown lazy from never
having to finish a sentence for someone to know where it was going. He had been
fantastically unpopular during his brief time in school, gaining friendship and
notoriety only in the weeks leading up to his expulsion. But with Dolokhov it
had been easy again, not that he could tell through intuition like Hélène
could, but because he was sharp enough to cut straight through any barriers a
man might throw up around himself- and he had never been consciously good at
such defence mechanisms anyway. He glares at Dolokhov;
“No,” he replies, shortly. Dolokhov nods.
He had written so excitedly to Hélène when he knew for sure that he was coming
home, and been left raw and stinging from her lack of reply. He could only
imagine the cause to be displeasure on her part and was left now with no idea
of what seeing her again would be like.
“It’s not what you think it is,” Dolokhov says, determined on pressing the
point.
“What doI think it is?” Anatole’s lip curled, not wholly pleasantly.
“You think she doesn’t want to see you. That she didn’t reply because your
letter struck her as bad news. Did it not occur to you that she’s just
defending herself? How many times do you think she’s had her hopes up only to
find you didn’t come home after all, eh? And when you did how many times did
your dear papa make sure she wasn’t there?”
“You don’t – you can’t know that. You don’t know her.”
Dolokhov bites his lip, giving Anatole that look that makes him feel painfully
younger.
“I might. I know you.”
Anatole narrows his eyes. He does not want to think about that – about Hélène
existing in a permanent state of disappointment and disillusionment. He would
rather get angry over her being happy without him and thereby imagine that she
ishappy without him. Still, he has become used to Fedya’s levels of perception,
and knows how rarely he has been wrong. He remembers how it started, only a
couple of months after they met. Everyone was surprised at their friendship
when all anyone had witnessed was the antagonism of their first meeting. But
then, when they had firmly disabused everybody of the notion that they were
enemies, people had begun to accept them almost in the way one would a couple.
The friendship had even had the added effect of the men’s estimation for
Dolokhov changing, slowly at first, steering away from that patronising
distaste Anatole had first observed to a level of respect that was almost
higher than that which they felt for him.
He forgets what country they were in. They had been out somewhere, on their way
back to barracks. It had been autumn, he remembers the leaves and the heavy,
almost spicy smell on the air. Talk had turned back to home and he had found
himself expressing himself for the thousandth time in a way he had only found
he could to this one man.
“If you could just meet her –” he was saying – “I know you’d love her. But
everyone loves her. How could they not? But they don’t know her, nobody does, I
would have you know her – for real – I’d – what?” he broke out of the reverie,
the eternal dream of her because he noticed an expression of dreadful sadness 
flash briefly in his friend’s face
“What is it?”
The expression vanished quickly, pushed away. He never ceased to be impressed
at how easily Dolokhov seemed to do that – to hide his feelings, keep them from
his face beneath a mask of indifference. It almost made him laugh that,
different as they so completely were, Dolokhov could actually remind him of
Hélène in this respect.
“Nothing,” Dolokhov said quickly – “You love her – that’s – when two people
love each other and they can’t be together, I –” Anatole could see it made his
friend sad, angry; some such emotion that he did not want to speak and
something else too that he could not so easily read.
“You know we can’t –” He had to actively bite his tongue. There were some
things that could not be told, even to as good a friend as this – “because –
well –” it was like getting in position to dance, and he would dance around
this again and again if he had to.
“Yes I know,” Dolokhov nodded, quickly, saying it as casually as he might
comment on anything – “because she’s your sister.”
He had not meant to stop still, and it seemed quite by accident, quite a
mistake that he had suddenly stopped walking. He had looked at Dolokhov for a
long silent moment, during which he could hear himself breathe, hear the wind
clatter the trees across the field. For the hundredth time he found himself
thinking what would Helene do?But he could not do that – he could not lie and
deny it now.
“For god’s sake, don’t –” he closed his eyes. It came out in an unmanly
whisper. It had been hard enough for him to realise he could not speak of this
to just anyone, harder still to understand that love could ever be criminal
when it hurt no-one. But when he finally dared to meet his friend’s eyes he
realised that asking thisman not to tell was an insult to him, and he stopped.
“How did you ever –” he tried again, frowned.  He was so sure he had never said
anything that could lead anyone to this accurate and terrible guess. Dolokhov
sighed, put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.
“It’s safe with me, my friend.”
 All of a sudden a startling awareness had crept between them and he had felt
it like a curious and unexpected tug at the ribs. He had never expected to see
the sky reflected in anyone’s eyes but his sister’s, but in that moment he had
seen it in the tenderness aimed at him in that frank blue gaze. That hand which
he was so aware of upon his shoulder moved slowly to his neck and he felt
himself blush and surrender himself to the other man’s kiss. And then he had
understood the other feeling he had seen so briefly flash in Dolokhov’s eyes,
and was able to return it just a little; knowing as Dolokhov knew too, that it
changed nothing. It was no replacement for his love and he understood with
perfect simplicity that there was room in him for this too, a gentle
accompaniment to every other feeling.
After that he had held nothing back and his heart which he had so clumsily
tried to lock up, opened again in all of its entirety.
“You may be right,” he says now, non-comitally, shrugging. He looks back out of
the window as the fields start to give way to houses, not wanting to know what
Dolokhov might be thinking himself, knowing that everything is  about to change
and unsure if it is for the better or worse. They do not speak again until the
carriage pulls up and he realises, looking up at the house, that he is not even
slightly ready for this.
“Well then –” he says, brightly – “This is me.”
He can see Dolokhov fighting to restrain something in his face but all he says,
blinking several times and then stopping, echoing perfectly calmly as he looks
up at the house through the window –
“Thisis – you?”
“Well, father’s at any rate I suppose.” Anatole shrugs, not able to see what
his friend is staring at so curiously. “Do you – want to come in?”
Dolokhov sinks back into his seat across from Anatole, clearly forcing himself
to look away. He almost – Anatole thinks, though it is silly – looks afraid, or
ashamed, and for himself he cannot understand why.
“No, that’s –” Dolokhov speaks slowly – “Not today, eh? You’re better off doing
this without me, and –” he exhales slowly, “I should be getting home myself.”
“Alright.” Anatole nods, closing his eyes, trying, trying, trying to feel
prepared for this – “I’ll send you a message, next couple of days.”
Dolokhov nods, smiles tightly, his eyes distant. Anatole opens the door and
jumps down from the carriage. Here the snow has been swept away and his boots
crunch on the icy gravel. He starts up the stairs and hears a footman offer up,
“Welcome home, your Excellency,” which is strangely warming but to which he
does not respond.
Almost two years in the army and now coming home he finally feels as though he
going to war. He nods slightly to the footman and steps through the door.
__x__
 
 
 
 
***** Dolokhov, Christmas, 1801 *****
 
Dolokhov, Christmas, 1801
 
As the carriage pulls away he feels ridiculous for not having acted more
sensibly. He comforts himself with the fact that Anatole has no clue at all of
what the problem was anyway. Stupid!He berates himself. Stupid, stupid!As
though he could not have guessed what Prince Anatole Kuragin’s house would have
been like. He shakes his head at himself, struggling beneath a storm of
feelings, glad he made the decision not to go in, not today.
He tries to imagine how Anatole would react to seeing where and how his family
live and at first tortures himself that the idea does not bear thinking about
before he realises that Anatole would not care. He would not judge or sneer or
find anything strange in their differences of circumstance. He thinks that when
he met the boy two years ago, he might have done – but even then – Anatole does
not seethe differences between people like that, and it is simultaneously
endearing and frustrating.
The most frustrating thing of all, he supposes, was falling in love with the
boy in the first place. It took him longer than he would ever have liked to
realise that this was exactly what he had done. He does not know why or how or
what the hell he thought he was doing, but it happened and that is all he can
say about it.
At first he knew better than to expect anything would come of it. There was
every reason to think that nothing would. Anatole was barely more than a child.
He was in love in a way Dolokhov neither could nor would want to interfere with
and he seemed to be vehemently interested in only women. This last was the one
that he saw through first – it was toovehement, too defensive. Well, he
supposed it was bad enough for the boy to love a girl he could not have without
risking Siberia doubly by liking men as well as women. But he did; he admitted
later he always had, and could see no reason not to that was not ridiculous.
Everything was simple to Anatole, and nothing worth over-thinking, apart from
those few things – that onething – that he could not completely have. The
innocent clarity in those eyes demanded that one love him and there was nothing
to be done about it. He had never imagined it would hit him like this, imagined
even less that he could be happy being second best, like, as he knew he had to
be. He could hardly compete with this girl he had not met – he knew that
without even seeing her. Too many days spent hearing of nothing but her beauty,
too many nights spent hearing the boy cry for her when he thought nobody could
hear. He half wanted to hate her but could not quite get there; lingering
instead at a vague unwillingness to meet her finally.
Everything would change now; he could not doubt, wondering if Anatole would
even remember to contact him as he had promised. As the carriage pulls up on
the corner of his street he pushes it all as far as he can to the back of his
mind.
Home is as it had been since he had been old enough to keep the family off the
streets; a narrow house in the middle of the terrace with a single candle
burning in the window. It is sad and cheery all at once, that candle, its light
doing little more than illuminating half the window. He looks at the faint
orange light, digs his hands in his pockets, looks up at the sky in the
gathering dark and tries the door. It swings open and he stomps the snow from
his boots at the edge.
They are so pleased to see him it is almost embarrassing. It feels like walking
into more than just a room of two people to hear his name called so
enthusiastically and his sister rush to him as he stoops to come through the
door. The glow on their faces spreads further than the candle at the window and
he cannot help but feel insufficient to be the cause of so much happiness. He
only ever feels this here, amongst the people he tries to help the most, knows
that however much he can send them it is not enough, that he can never help as
much as he would like; a sense that is only sharpened by how grateful they
always are, how much they tell him he does for them and how much less than what
he does they ever expect. He wishes, just now and again, that they could be a
little less accepting of their lot in life, as he has never accepted it. It is
only when he is back with them that he wonders if he has done wrong in this.
He falls into place amongst them beside the small fire as though it is a place
kept open every day that he is not there; it is both comfortable and
disturbing. He searches them and the room for signs of change – anything in
their faces to suggest unhappiness or a distress they stubbornly will not tell
him about. He knows they do this. He finds nothing. It occurs to him that the
fire itself is a luxury, put on for his comfort and to try and fool him into
thinking that they have this level of warmth at all times. But he can see the
blankets heaped on the back of his mother’s chair and the layers of shawl his
sister is wearing and knows, with an internal sigh, that this alone is their
usual protection against the cold. He determines, as they talk animatedly of
nothing, to send more, to help more, to be home more. He knows he determines
this every time he comes home and feels like a disloyal wretch.
He tries not to compare, but he knows he has been comparing all his life and
the higher his own circles of acquaintance grow the poorer his own family seem,
even when he does nothing but improve their circumstances along with his own.
He has seen the way the people around him waste food and heating, seen the way
in which they live and their casual indifference to it. He knows that here meat
is a luxury and tea leaves thrice used and that these things themselves are
luxuries compared to what he had tried to become accustomed to as a child. He
catches himself thinking about what Anatole has come home to, what he could be
facing now and realises, with a twisted  knot of feeling, that his own
homecoming is probably easier.
He smiles at the animation on his mother’s face as she talks without end to
him, delighted enough to forget her tea, holding the cup for its warmth without
drinking. He knows that Galina is watching him the same way he watches them,
thoughtfully, looking for change, trying to read him as he tries to work out
the two of them. He wishes without end that there could have been more
opportunities open to her; knows that she is clever and quick witted and that
even without looks to go on could have done well in society. But she will never
see society and when she claims to be glad of this he never can tell how
truthful she is being.
He asks his mother as least a half dozen times if all is well, if there is
anything he can help with, how they are and she answers only with eternal
optimism and delight at his mere presence. He does not enjoy such delight, but
is glad that she is happy at least. She goes to bed early and he kisses her,
taking the tea things out to the kitchen and coming back to find his sister on
the floor by the fire, huddled up close in one of their mother’s blankets.
“She seems happy,” he sits down beside her.
“She’s pleased to see you. We both are. Take a blanket.”
He looks quickly at the fire, which is dying, and almost asks her why not top
it up, but he knows why not, and refuses to embarrass either of them by asking.
He takes a blanket and sits next to her on the floor.
“And you, little sister?”
“I said we both are –” she grins at him with dark, chipped teeth, it is sweeter
than it should be – “What more do you want, eh?”
“And you –” he falters, knowing she will be more honest than their mother is
and not sure, after all that he isready for it – “There’s really no more I can
help with?”
She shrugs, an awkward crooked gesture –
“There’s a draught coming in through your room – but I sleep in with mama these
days so it’s only you’ll be cold.”
“Oh is that right? I’ll fix that.”
“You fixed it last time. It came back – there’s a leak sometimes in the kitchen
too, when it rains.”
“I’ll fix that too. And get more wood in so you can run that fire every day,
eh?”
“We already –” she begins stubbornly, but she jerks her chin just a little too
high and he catches her eye. She shakes her head- “Alright then. If you can –
and if you tell me who they are.”
“Who what are? What?” This takes him by surprise.
“Something’s changed. You’re different.”
“I’m always different. It’s been awhile.”
“Not that kind of different. You’ve met someone. I can tell.”
“How can you tell? No I haven’t – oh, shut up!” he pushes her, gently. She
laughs and he knows that somehow she has caught him out. It occurs to him in
fact that she has used the same tricks to do so that he has used himself
countless times on others.
“Well?” She gives him that look again, dark eyed, almost fey – “Who is he? Or
she? You know I won’t tell. They’re special, aren’t they?”
He opens his mouth to laugh who would you tell?But this would be too close,
even in humour. He knows that she has books for friends and newspapers for
society.
“He–”he begins and sighs, aloud this time. It occurs to him that the question
of gender, criminal as it is, is not even the worst of his problems. And what
can he say that will not make his sister sad? That he loves someone else? That
to say there was an issue of class between them would be like saying the stars
were too far to touch.
“He isspecial,” he says at last – “At first I thought in the worst possible way
–” and then he talks. He talks long into the night, his sister listening as
though his tales are the most exotic of all. He talks about their first fight
and how much he disliked the boy, talks about the troubles they have got up to
together, making her laugh with the tales of their exploits. He even tells her
to some degree of that first kiss in the autumn leaves and the nights they
spent together in what amounted to a curious kind of innocence, Anatole so
young, so uncertain when it came to men, so trusting and so beautiful.
“Beautiful?” Galina smiles – “Like a girl?”
“It’s the right word,” he nods, and it is. He tries not to let slip that sense
of absolute tenderness he feels both now and connected always to those nights
where they would fall asleep curled up together, Anatole relaxed enough to
break his heart word by word talking about her,always about her, her eyes, her
smile, the soft and the sharp of her until he could almost see her standing
over them in the bed they had fought over not ever imagining that they could
share. But it does slip out and more than he means to.
“He loves someone else,” his sister says, half a question, half not.
“Yes.” he frowns.
“But he loves you too.” He thinks about this as though he has not been asking
himself the question for over a year now.
“Perhaps,” he says, then forces himself to smile for her sake – “Yes of course,
how could he not?”
She laughs, and this he realises is for hissake and not at all because she
believes in the smile he only forces for her sake.
“Of course,” she says and her smile fades as quickly as it came;
“You will be careful, won’t you Fedya?”
“I’m always careful.”
“No, listen to me! I’m serious. You mustn’t –”
“My dear little sister, don’t you think if I was going to get myself sent to
Siberia I’d have done it by now?”
“Now I didn’t mean that! I know you –” she shakes her head- “I meant of getting
your heart broken, stupid.”
“I won’t.” He grins and he holds the grin more confidently than he feels,
knowing she is watching him closely, knowing that he is trying to stop himself
thinking how too late for that he already is.
He lies awake that night looking out onto the sky, wondering if he can stretch
to getting curtains on these windows as well as the repairs that are needed on
the house. The sky is clear and bright in the wake of the snowfall, everything
washed clean. He wonders at that sky, starting fresh again every night, the
rain and snow polishing it to that shiny obsidian studded with stars. He thinks
about what he has got himself into and wonders what will come of it; dear god
what  mess, what a bloody mess,he thinks. He thinks about Anatole and where he
could be tonight, if he is with her, if they can have fallen back together so
easily. He supposes that they must have done, knows they are meant to be
together and cannot be sad about it. To be sad about it would be the most
incredible level of selfishness and he cannot reach that. Neither does he have
any intention of feeling sorry for himself; he banned himself from self – pity
forever a long time ago.
He looks out at the stars, picking out first one and then another, each with
its irrefutable place in the sky. Nothing out there changes its course and
everything, it seems, knows its place. Everything in nature,Dolokhov thinks
–everything except me.For what has he ever done other than rail against his
place and position? When has he allowed himself to stand as still as a star and
let the world change around him? No he must not, he cannot; he has to be in
motion changing it all around him. Anatole, he realises, is the star, expecting
everything to fall into place around him, unable to accept anything otherwise,
and shining. Oh yes always shining. Tonight the sky and the man seem to
Dolokhov equally as out of his grasp.
But it does not stop him hoping. It does not stop him reaching. He will reach
forever if he has to. He can be pulled forwards, always more and more, but
there is no power down here or up there that will hold him back. I’ve got you
sky,he thinks – I’ll change you yet, before you ever change me, I’ll have you!
And the sky looks down and does not care.
__x__
***** Anatole, Christmas, 1801 *****
 
Anatole, Christmas 1801
 
It occurs to him to wonder for the first time if he has ever in fact seen every
room of the house. It does not feel like coming home, stepping into this big
bright place that he feels he would half like to explore. But then he finds
himself uncertain if it is that the place that seems strange, or himself. He
finds himself almost introspective on returning to this place he once lived in
as a boy, wondering if and how he became a man in less than three years away.
It is impossible to catch oneself in the act of growing but he knows, somehow
that he has. He wonders if we are ever the same person two years later, or if
it takes longer and if so how long does it take to become someone else? No, he
decides; he is not sure he has changed at all, not really. The thoughts collide
and confuse him and he shakes them from his head as he strides through into the
front lounge. It is a further relief – though he almost feels bad about it –
when the only faces he sees are his brother’s and father’s, looking up at his
approach and breaking into smiles. He finds himself ready enough to ignore the
rapid heartbeat that thuds to an anxious where is she, where is she?
It is perhaps the only time he can think of, or will ever remember afterwards,
when his father welcomed him with open arms. If there is any reticence in
Prince Vasily, any uncertainty as to how pleased he is to receive his younger
son back into the family, he does not show it. Anatole tries to remember the
last time his father ever hugged him and cannot dredge the memory up. Certainly
he suspects Hyppolite has neverhugged him before in his life but he does so now
as though in genuine hope that any wrongness between them has been erased by
this passage of time. In his brother’s lack of reticence and his surprisingly
ready smile Anatole finds himself trusting him almost immediately and there is
not even the moment of doubt he had imagined there would be, no curious eyeing
of one another and unspoken question as to whether or not they will even
embrace and they do and it is strange and pleasant. They slap each other on the
back as though they have missed each other and for those few and maybe only
seconds they are brothers as they both suppose they might have been under
different circumstances.
And then there is a little rush of cold air, shivery and tingling, spiking at
the back of Anatole’s neck and a crystalline voice from the doorway, a smiling,
cut-glass voice saying,
“Well, hello.”
When he remembers this later it will be in a rushing rainbow of slow motion; he
turns at the pull of that voice as though he is on a string and his arms drop
to his sides slowly, vaguely registering that he can feel Hyppolite deflate,
any exuberance his brother has had falling from him like flowers from the hands
of a startled girl. He hears his brother sigh only just audibly, and he goes
back to his place on the couch. He is mercifully and awfully aware of his
father still watching him benignly, and so he does not let the easy smile drop
from his face when he looks at her.
But how terribly hard it is to keep that smile, to keep his face neutrally
pleased. Later he will think of this, bizarrely and illogically, as the moment
they first met; and it really is as though he has never seen her before. But
then has he? This woman in the doorway is different from the girl he left
behind in a hundred tiny ways. He does not remember her poise, that smile, the
condescending merriment in her eyes, that mask of smiling indifference – these
were all things his sister had just been practising when he left, but has
perfected now into fixtures of her womanhood. He feels almost afraid of her. 
Even her voice is different, more polished, sparkling in the light, clear and
shining, her arms folded coolly across her chest and he can tell those skirts
which gently sweep the floor behind her have not caused her to trip or curse
with impatience in a long time.
For a moment it is unreal; he finds himself wondering who she is. He has talked
about her every day, every night for almost two years – ever since he found
someone who would hear him; but he wonders now if this can really be her. He
has spoken of her beauty without fully remembering every line of her face and
he wonders, looking at her now, if this was what she always looked like at all.
For half a heartbeat he thinks he could discard her entirely, close off his
heart to such cool smirking perfection and in the second half of the heartbeat
he falls in love for another first time. With the falling he remembers,
remembers everything and wonders how he can have had even that moment of not
knowing her – it seems so simple all over again – she is his sister and she is
his. It is instantly impossible that there could be any other truth.
And all of this goes through his mind in the space of half a minute; the
longest half minute he has ever lived, and he remembers that he has to move, to
touch her, to speak to her and all of a sudden what was briefly so simple is
intensely complex all over again. He stiffens, abandoning the easy, unusual
familiarity with which he greeted his father and brother, and approaches her as
though he would a stranger; with a swagger he has only recently begun to affect
and suddenly feels himself in need of. He tries to remember what he ought to
say and the only word that will come out through his smile is –
“Sister,” and he takes her hand as though to kiss it, becomes confused and
stands for a moment just holding her hand in both of his. Her skin is so soft
and so familiar and a host of memories wash back over him, unwelcome beneath
their father’s gaze. He finds himself fixated upon a curl of her hair falling
against her neck and towards her swelling bosom. He finds himself having to
rein in his breathing, looking at the fall of her hair like that, squeezing his
eyes shut against the rise and fall of her chest. If he embraces her as he
knows he must, she will know more than he would like, and if he does not their
father will wonder why. He angles himself awkwardly, enveloping her in the
necessary embrace quickly, kissing her cheek without looking at her; noting
with interest that she is just as brief, as tense as he is, something regretful
in the way her hand rests on his arm so formally. He lets her go quickly,
wishing too hard that they were alone and he could crush her close with easy
abandon and never let go again. In his mind he sees himself doing just that and
it takes all of his willpower – a force he never much likes to exert – to step
away.
“You’ve grown,” she says, smiling, in that same cool-water voice. She is a
stream and he is parched with the need to drink, prickling with the urge to
jump in. He cannot work through the look in her eyes, cannot fathom her at all.
“You haven’t,” he retorts, neutral, always neutral. He can see their father
smile out of the corner of his eye, watching them benignly and evidently
pleased. Her smile widens and she sweeps past him to stand by the fire, placing
a pale hand on the mantelpiece, poised as though she is having her portrait
painted. He tries not to watch her too closely but still sees that the press of
her fingers against the marble is tight and that she watches him almost
constantly but surreptitiously as their father talks, announces the plans he
has for them tonight, the huge rounds of welcome home parties and balls that
have been set up, the people Anatole will need to call upon over the next few
weeks and all of the business of becoming re-acquainted with society that will
be his life – he realises-in the lead up to Christmas. And then with Christmas
itself – his heart sinks as he realises the way their father has planned his
way around what must be to him just another in a long line of problems to be
solved. If it was not for the briefly raised eyebrow his sister throws him he
might have despaired altogether. There is a certain amount of I told you soin
that eyebrow – even though she has not, they have not even communicated in
months and the fact that she can do this, even with everything standing between
then now gives him hope even if the gesture is a half hopeless one. You see?It
says – it’s all been plotted out this way, I knew it all along.There is a sigh
in it, almost, a dull understanding that their father and circumstances will
all try their hardest to keep them from any chance of spending real time
together and yet in spite of it all he finds himself smiling. It is not the
smile their father thinks it is, one of pleasure at the plans being outlined,
it is at despite their few words being no real communication at all they have
fallen back into mute and mutual understanding all the same and nothing to be
done about it.
And it is this too; a smile because she is beautiful and his and, in spite of
the brief fight he put up against it - he is in love.
__x__
***** Hélène, Christmas, 1801 *****
 
Hélène , Christmas, 1801
 
She stands on the edge of the lawn looking up at the sky, at the whiteness of
that lawn spreading down before her. Everything is clear and crisp and clean on
the afternoon before Anatole’s return. She watches her breath stream out onto
the air, marvelling at the stillness that only comes with such whiteness. What
a world, she thinks, what a pure untouched world it seems – and what a lie it
is with its muddy green and slush such a short way beneath the snow. I belong
hereshe thinks; I belong in this clean white sparkling lie of a world. How
perfect, she thinks, the unblemished stretch of lawn is and how easily
trampled, one touch, one footprint and it is sullied, gone from sacrosanct to
crushable in the space of seconds. Oh yes, she thinks, yes this too I can
feel.-
It is like being trapped in a vast, white, never-ending room; straight jacketed
between the sky and the snow and such stillness as makes her wish she could
scream aloud and shatter it. She has had dreams like this and in the dreams she
can scream, cracking the sky and waking up to realise that a thin croaking
sound is squeezing its way out of her throat, swallowed by the air.
She smiles, a knife edge gleaming in the sparkling white light. The sky
frightens her when it is so white. The snow has scrubbed it so clean. She tries
to think better thoughts, to feel clean like that sky. A blank slate, some
might stay, a fresh start, a new day, so much hope, so much potential, so much
beauty. She tries to find that cliché of clarity in her own heart, in her soul
if she has one, that the bright beautiful day ought to inspire. But the clarity
she finds is the one she puts on; she has had to become the girl she pretends
to be inside and out and sometimes she almost believes it, hanging on to these
fantastical, sweet-spun structures of self as substitutes for exploring the
girl beneath.
She does not want to know that girl, she thinks; she does not need her,
especially not today. Not that today is special. She is, she reminds herself,
indifferent to her brother’s return just as he has been uninterested in
returning for almost a year now. She has no idea why she feels such a need to
keep calm. She remembers that girl of two years ago – not even that long. The
girl who cried. The girl who raged inside and almost out. She remembers that
savage internal rage and distress, that constant call of why?that clamouring at
the heart. She has put it away, found a locked up place for it. She tried to
slough it off like a cloak, to burn it clean away, but she was not quite good
enough for that. Perhaps it is a failure. But she does not see herself as
someone who fails. When distress comes, she has since realised, it is never a
question, as one mostly hears it out loud, of What’s a girl to do?It is a
question of what’s a girl to be.She knows who to be and when and for whom, even
when she needs to fool or amuse herself. What self, she snorts inside and there
it is; the bitterness, the spike that drives up out of the locked box to stab
her through the wood and prick the heart she still has after all.
She wonders if she can reflect the spooky white of that sky in her eyes,
looking up, hands clenched together in their gloves, the nibble of cold at her
nose. Sensation, she thinks, that can be a way out. She has tried it – tried to
enjoy contact, kissed boys, gone further than she should mostly to see if she
can make herself love it, wanting to love it, risking just a whisper of slander
to see how far she can take it. But it has never been more than mildly
disagreeable, amusing her for the power she can then hold over these foolish
boys but not coming close to touching her. But then, that feeling of strength,
of control – that at least has brought her back to try again, whittling and
refining her understanding of power into something she can wield. She digs her
fingernails into her palms beneath tables and behind her back, seeing how
perfect she can keep her smile all the while, how blithely she can carry a
conversation whilst seeing how much pain she can give herself at the same time.
She finds herself intoxicated by how deeply she can affect a man while she
leads him to think she feels something she does not, almost enjoying her own
numbness.
She thinks about perfection, about reputation and the fragility of balance. She
looks out across the snow, eyes shining at its flawless perfection and takes a
merciless step forward. She takes a round of the garden, enjoying the crunch
and the brush of snow, the knowledge of ruining her skirts and the snowfall,
feeling a pleasure in watching the destruction of that previous perfection that
is both childish and grim. There is satisfaction in destruction, she thinks, in
the ability to say I did thatand be able to fully view the effects.
Anatole, she knows, takes pleasure only in the action and has no ability to
even see the effects thereof. She catches herself wondering what he will be
like, if he will have changed, what it will be like between them now, if he
still – she stops herself before she goes too far. She is relieved when she
hears her father’s voice calling her back inside, tearing her away from her
thoughts and the trammelled snow of the lawn. But she looks back one last
glance at the flurry and the wreckage and smiles, almost proudly.
She makes herself come late into the drawing room, on purpose of course;
although she does sit before the mirror too long making certain that she is
perfect, though why she feels the need to be she does not dare ask herself. She
reminds herself it is not worth it, not just for a brother. But she isperfect;
she notes it to herself on her way down the stairs, conscious with every step
of the picture she must make and pleased with it. The dress is sky blue and
white, sweeping like a cloud and that white she hopes indeed to be reflected in
her eyes, the clear glaze of sightlessness.
But it cannot last. She had been so sure that it could. She had not counted on
finding a young man in the drawing room in place of the boy she remembered. She
should have thought of it, should have known he would grow more than she had;
he was young when he left. And now he is taller, broader and somehow more
finished than before; frighteningly satisfying somehow, when every young man
she has met these past two years has left her with a feeling of overwhelming
dissatisfaction. And his eyes have changed; dark now and glittering, facets of
the present and the past dancing in those eyes, recognizable and new all at
once. It is hard to keep control of her face and she breathes out her Ohhof
surprise on the inside only. Touching is almost painful in this strange state
of heightened sense and she knows well enough why he angles himself away from
her as much as he can. She is used to men wanting her, never seeing it until
now as anything other than a weakness to be exploited, a tool for her to use.
But he wants her, almost immediately and it is as awkwardly painful for him to
touch her as it is for to accept it because this has to be staged and at a time
where she feels as though she has forgotten her usual lines. The rush of
arousal that hits her in response to his makes her dizzy, the floor turning
circles at a sliding angle.
She has to almost cling to the mantelpiece to keep herself steady. She had so
completely convinced herself that she would not feel like this, that she was
not as damaged as she had become convinced she had to be to feel the way she
did. Anatole had never believed they were doing anything wrong and it seemed
like cruelty to an animal to tell him otherwise, but she had always known that
other brothers and sisters were not like this, and feared some terrible
brokenness within the two of them to be the cause of it, even if they were
beautiful and better than everyone else all the same. But she had managed to
more than half convince herself it was something she had grown out of and
worked hard on this belief. And now all that work was shattered in an instant.
It feels as though she is aware of her heartbeat for the first time in years
and the steady rhythm from so deep down frightens her like drum beats in the
dark.
She has become too used to the way their father works to have ever doubted how
he would play this. It is all depressingly familiar, though now she feels that
rush of excitement telling her their life could be different, exhilarating and
dreadful. Her head spins, giddy with it, and as she watches him she cannot
believe her overarching feeling to be good god I did not know this could happen
to me!She sees the understanding dawn in his eyes when he realises what she has
always known – that papa will keep them from having any time to be alone as
much as he possibly can. But, having had longer to assimilate this knowledge
than he has had, she knows too that he cannot be successful forever. She had
thought she would not care. It would not matter. How quickly - she feels a
laugh rise in her and swallows it down with something approaching hysteria – it
can all come around. What matters and what does not. Yes, she thought she was
above this, cloaked herself in the smugness of it will not happen to me.And if
it did happen she has – strange to realise it now – never imagined it could be
him.
It is an absolute assault to the system, all this change, all at once. She has
always been walking a tightrope, high above her world, always in fear of
falling. Now that she finds herself in the air it is not as bad as she had
feared. She supposes she should have known – we fall together, always together
-and though she knows it can only end with them both crashing she supposes that
if they remain joined in the fall they can keep it going for long enough. When
he meets her raised eyebrow with that smile she smiles back and has to look
away from him quickly, pretends to be smiling at papa. When he smiles at her
like that she thinks no of course, it’s not falling, this is flying!
She feels, for the first time since she can remember- possibly in fact for the
first time in her life – like a ridiculous young girl. And did it take me
almost twenty years to reach this point?She wonders, surprised at herself, at
the same time appalled that she has, after all, allowed it to happen. Well she
did not allow it. It was barely a question of that. At the same time she is too
practical to deny to herself what is happening like so many would to begin
with. She wonders where this sudden ability to be honest to herself comes from
but does not need to wonder for long. From you of course –she looks his way
quickly when he is not looking, something she suspects he has been doing
himself up until now – you were the only honesty I ever had.It is more than
just having her brother return; she realises she has come home to herself. This
is how I will remember it –she thinks with a curious pre-determination of
hindsight – I will remember being able to speak clearly to myself again on the
day my reflection came back to me.
Suddenly it is as though everything that was lost can be found again, though
she knows this is a madness borne of these new and incredible feelings. She has
to put a polite hand to her mouth, feel the firm press of her fingertips
against her lips not to laugh out loud, watching papa, watching the nervousness
and shaky self-satisfaction flicker and war in his eyes. She knows what he
tried to do over two years ago, what he was trying to prevent. If he only knew
how much worse he has made it! Her heart sings and she feels as though the
laugh is trying to escape from her ears – it had only ever been love before and
– dangerous as that already was it is not, she realises now for the first time,
the same as being inlove.
And she is in love now. It is a wave frozen at the point of breaking, prepared
to crash a universe to fragments when it falls.
__x__
So a line from “A Song of Ice and Fire” almost snuck it’s way into this, so did
a bit of “Les Liaisons Dangereuse” – I wiggled them out but they’re still half
there in spirit, my apologies for being more than usually derivative. :-)
***** Anatole, January 1802 *****
 
 
Anatole, January 1802
 
“Is it strange?” she begins without preamble; suddenly there, sidling up beside
him, glass in hand- he tries to ignore the way his hands start to shiver,
balling them into fists so that they do not actually shake. It is not right,
not at all, that she should have this effect upon him and worse, he suspects
that for all his clumsy attempts at concealment she knows what that effect is
all too well.
“Is what strange?”
“This –” she makes a sweep with her arm, the ballroom reflecting through the
facets of her glass, a microcosm caught in a bubble of champagne  –
“Everything. The world. Is it strange?”
“Is it the world?” He frowns to hear himself; something almost cynical in his
voice that he does not recognise as belonging to him. It does not belong to
him; indeed it sounds more like Dolokhov. He feels guilty thinking about
Dolokhov and is not entirely sure why. Partly perhaps because he has not
contacted him in almost two weeks, like he said he would, and also because he
has not yet so much as mentioned him to Helene. He cannot even begin to imagine
how he would, what he would even refer to the man as – friendor lover –it is
not even that simple. He has never found language to be so inadequate before.
He has never been so unsure of anything – even to whom he may have done wrong.
“Well –” she says airily – “I suppose you’ve seen so much more of it than I
have”. He risks a look at her, sideways, trying to tell if she is being sore,
sarcastic or flattering. She leaves her voice frustratingly ambiguous and she
is smiling that habitual smile she puts on in public that tells him nothing but
seems to give so many so much unwarranted hope. It does not give him hope in
the slightest.
“Being back?” he returns to her original question- “Yes, it’s strange.
Everything’s different, I –” he breaks off suddenly, not sure how much he can
say to her – this new, more distant sister who he has barely seen these two
weeks other than at the public functions they are constantly compelled to
attend. It chokes him to be like this; suffocated by the weight of public
appearance and everything that stands between them – understanding, society,
this constant visibility and this something else – something so thick he wishes
he could just cut through it but feels himself lacking a weapon sharp enough.
“Not everything,surely.” For a frightening moment he almost catches her eye as
she looks at him askance the same way he has been eyeing her. And then, as
though he were not already screaming at himself to stay calm she adds just as
lightly, in that same tinkling society voice and as though it does not matter –
“Did you miss me?”
There is something else in her voice, so faint he half thinks he has imagined
it – but it is there and for just a moment it makes his heart stop, the rest of
the room slows down, becomes a blur – for the first time catches the vaguest
hint of concern, a whispered undercurrent to her calm façade that speaks of
something churning darkly underneath.
“How can I –” he starts, looks at her quickly, ignoring her smile, glancing
straight at the flash in her eyes – like looking directly at the sun. He
realises there is only one way to do this, and it is her way – carelessly, as
though they are just catching up, harmlessly, trivially and unconcernedly. He
switches to a different voice, a different game of  himself –
“Would you likeme to have missed you?”  He congratulates himself on the slyness
of the question, but not for long.
“It’s all the same to me,” she shrugs, as he realised he knew she would.
“No then,” he shrugs back, giving her that quick look and adding pointedly–
“not if it’s all the same to you.”
She smiles and he feels himself congratulated on how well he is taking to the
game.
“You’re learning,” she raises an eyebrow – “Papa has another engagement tonight
after this one,” she adds and for a moment he frowns, thinking she is changing
the subject. “He’s taking Hyppolite as well –” and then the final breakthrough
– “You used to tell me everything.” Her smile slips, curling briefly into
something unbearably enigmatic; she rests a butterfly hand on his arm and
drifts away to mingle in the crowd.
He wonders, pacing his room that evening, if he has just been being stupid all
this time – if she has been trying to communicate with him in this curious code
ever since he got back and he has only cracked it now because she dared to be
just a little more obvious. He wonders if she knowshe has paced his room every
night since he returned, wondering if he could just go to her like he used to.
Now he wonders if she has lain awake every night cursing him and his doubt.
Well he has cursed her enough, tried to avoid her, tried everything to make
this go away. It has not gone away; neither the love nor the lust and they are
both frightening and somehow new. The newness is worst of all – loving before
has been as natural as breathing, both times, but this is not like that, this
is like waking up to a painful day. Even his body is at a loss how to handle
these relentless needs. He tries to cast her out, to conjure up a fantasy of
any other girl he can bring to mind, but the fantasies all turn into the things
he wants to do to her and it is the savagely visceral thought of her that makes
him come every time, with her face before him and her name trapped behind his
lips.
It was so easy before; loving her, wanting her – before they were separated and
he came to a half understanding that it was not, for reasons he still could not
begin to fathom, a thing that was supposed to be. Now that need is back and the
love has metamorphosed into something uncontrollable it frightens and confuses
him. He wishes he could ask Dolokhov about it – the only person he could trust
to speak to, he might be able to tell him what to do. But this, he supposes, is
the one case in which his friend would not tell him and it might – he supposes
briefly – even be unfair to ask.
You used to tell me everythingshe said. He knows it; even when he did not voice
a thought or a feeling the moment its existence occurred to him, he would creep
to her room every night to relieve himself of every word in his head, ever need
in his heart. Is that what she meant? That he stop this ridiculousness and go
to her now? He hopes he has not misunderstood. Thinking is difficult and action
is easier and he is not a coward even if he is afraid. He goes. He raises a
hand to knock on her door, drops it and walks in; he never knocked before, and
there have been too many changes to risk setting any more new precedents.
“Well finally.”
She turns from her mirror, rolling her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips that
for once is not a mask. She is holding her earrings in one hand, black and cut
and sparkling and her hand rests lightly on her hairbrush on the dresser.
“I thought I’d have to keep asking until next Christmas.”
“But –” he frowns, “You never asked?”
“Oh –” she makes a half caught sound of surprise, wonder betraying itself in
her eyes. “It still does that!”
“Eh? What still does what?”
“Your forehead –“ she smiles, rising, coming to him – “It crumples up in the
middle when you frown, you remember? I used to iron it out for you.”
Her smile – he cannot take his eyes from it – it is so guileless suddenly,
naked, her parted lips transforming her into almost a child and she touches two
fingers to his frown lines in a playful, gentle press. He closes his eyes,
breathing her in, she is so close now he has to hold onto her or fall. The hold
turns into a clutch and he is clinging to her like he has wanted to since he
got back – longer, he supposes, he has wanted this since he first went away.
She reaches back, river to sea, winding her arms around his shoulders, her
hands on the back of his neck, flowing as they always should be. He feels a dam
break inside of him. When he looks at her again her eyes are wet.
“I thought you hated me,” he says and the words run fast – “I thought you
didn’t love me anymore, didn’t care – you stopped writing and you were so
angry.”
“You stopped trying to come home. Yes I was angry. It doesn’t matter now. Every
time you wrote it made me so happy and then for days after it made me so sad –
when I read your letters you felt closer – then I’d get to the end and you
weren’t. ”
“Every time I came home you weren’t there. I started to think father was
telling the truth – that you wanted to be elsewhere, that you were too busy,
that you knew I was here but were otherwise engaged.”
Her eyes glaze and shine, he can see that she is biting back tears and her
words come out thickly  –
“It wasn’tthe truth. How could you, Anatole?”
“Well, it was stupid.”
“You mean youwere stupid.”
“Yes if you must. A friend of mine told me I was being - that it was what it
was. He said you had to care, really.”
Her eyes narrow a little and she looks at him curiously.
“You toldsomeone about me? You didn’t tell him everything.” She sees the look
on his squirming face and groans – “Anatole!” She rolls her eyes to the
ceiling.
“It’s not like that. He’s different – it’s – let me tell you.”
He takes her hands and leads her to the bed, propping himself up against the
headboard while she sits cross legged looking at him, subconsciously falling
back into the old pattern for telling secrets. He tells her everything from the
start – about Paris and school and getting thrown out, of all the bad behaviour
he concocted and yes – enjoyed to get there. He talks about the army and that
life and missing her – that thread always running through it all. And most of
all he tells her about Dolokhov. At first about their meeting and their
friendship, about the conversations and the late night drinking sessions, about
the fights and the games, always skirting something until Helene sighs and
stops him shaking her head  –
“Anatole were you fuckingthis friend of yours?”
“Whatever gave you –” he only begins because he is sure he has not said
anything to imply it. “Yes. Yes I suppose I was – or more he was fucking me –
are you –” he looks at her carefully, noticing a certain barrier in her eyes
that was not there before. It is not a complete closing off, like he has seen
her do in public just a slightly guarded, thoughtful look “Are you angry?”
“Do you love me?” she asks, frowning and biting her lip
“Yes of course. Always.”
“Do you love him?”
The question takes him by surprise; it occurs to him that he has not considered
it. It occurs to him that he is failing completely to keep his thought process
from blazing out of his eyes. He looks down, afraid of the answer he would have
to give her if he is to be honest. She sighs and he realises his pause was
answer enough. He is surprised that she can have realised it almost before he
did.
“Well” she looks down for a moment, looking up again, smiling a smile that
distresses him a little because it is such a return to artificial form - “Do
you love me less for loving him?” For the first time in possibly years it
occurs to him to feel guilty – ready to feel terrible for putting the worry in
her eyes.
“No,” he answers honestly. “No, not at all. It’s different.”
“And is he here? In Petersburg?”
“Yes, we came back together.”
“And you haven’t tried to see him all this time? You must. He loves you I
suppose?” she carries straight on as though she does not even need that
question answered. “Well you must. And you must introduce us – though I must
say he sounds like a scoundrel.”
“Well aren’t I a scoundrel?”
“Yes. That’s why you have to introduce us. I’ll reserve judgement until then.”
He has forgotten how much she can make him laugh. Strange to have forgotten so
much yet spent so much time remembering. The way her nose scrunches up when she
laughs and her forehead when she frowns - just the same as his. The way her
hands move, almost constantly as she talks, illustrating her words with her
gestures, those hands fluttering like living creatures. How surprising she is,
how accepting of these things that others would give up on him for, how
generous her love is in its way. He knows she would not believe him if he told
her she had a single kind or honest quality and so he keeps these thoughts to
himself like a secret treasure.
She flops now, to lean against the headboard beside him, the girl he remembers,
not half so poised and graceful as the one the world sees; this girl idle and
languid, uncontained and dramatic in every gesture. He loves them both – this
girl and the society queen. But it is the girl who presses her nose into his
cheek, kisses him with playful lips and shining eyes. He turns his head,
kissing her back with a first kiss just as playful. But the feel of her skin,
the smell of faint perfume and sister – it turns into something hungry,
something desperate, pushing against her, trying to consume her with fierce
feral kisses. It is wonderful, swirling and ecstatic and she is caught up in it
too until she seems to shudder and she breaks away, palms against his chest,
only just pushing –
“Wait – stop, no – we can’t –” he ignores her for a moment and she reiterates
her broken words, squirming to get away as though it hurts her to do so but she
has to –
“We can’t,” she says again. He stops, irritated and in need.
“Why not? We’ve done this before.”
“Yes. And they sent you away. Anyway, it’s different now.” She looks down, her
voice becoming bitter.
“Why is it different?” he feels as though he is arguing with himself more than
her – because he doesknow there is something different. He does not know why he
has to hurt them both by making her say it any more than she does.
“We’re older. We – we should know better –” she says it as though she hates
herself for it and then looks up at him with something helpless, half tragic in
her eyes that does anything but make him love her less – “And I wasn’t in love
with you before.”
Moments ago he would have thought that there was nothing she could have said
that would hold him back now, that with the dam broken he could not hold back
from her for anything. But this – this confession that he understands only too
well gives him too much pause for thought. This knowledge that they never had
before – that this cannot end the way they would have it – it is suddenly too
much to bear and he jumps up abruptly.
“I have to go.”
“No,” she glares at him with such icy fire in his eyes he realises she has
misunderstood him;
“I don’t mean forever – not like before - I just –” he feels suddenly as though
the room is a cage and he is cornered, backing away until he hits the door,
reaching to open it, looking at her once before he flees, offering up the only
explanation he can for  running out like this –
“I wasn’t in love before either.”
Outside her door he takes one deep breath in and out and when the world stops
spinning just enough to really live in it he realises he can hear her crying
through the door. He walks quickly back to his room and the house rings to
another door slamming shut.
__x__
***** Hélène, January 1802 *****
 
 
Hélène , January 1802
 
The days that follow are an agony of tension. She curses herself for her
spinning head and beating heart, like a stupid schoolgirl,she berates herself.
The only consolation is that their father has slowed down his persistent,
almost aggressive round of social functions. She wonders if they have passed
some kind of test; with the work she has put into it she almost hopes so.
The morning after he comes to her they meet awkwardly over the breakfast table
and she thinks, with a sinking heart, here we go, more walls and sighs almost
audibly. It is Hyppolite who fixes it, quite by accident, when he makes some
allusion to their awkwardness, unacceptably mocking the frostiness between them
and they both sigh and groan a faint but automatic –
“Oh shut up,” that evokes and resurrects so much all at once that they cannot
help but meet eyes across the table and smile warm conspiratorial smiles. And
so the past becomes their new refuge; a way of invoking intimacy whilst being
able to pretend it is what it has always been. Hyppolite leaves the table not
long after and Anatole grins;
“Do you think he’ll ever get the hint and actually shut up?”
“It’s hardly a hint when you word it shut up.And no, surely he’d have got there
already.”
“How many years havewe been trying?”
“Since I could speak I think – and I have a two year start on you.”
“I was an adorable child I’m sure.”
Now she grins;
“I don’t know who told you that. It wasn’t me. You were a nightmare. I wasn’t
interested in the slightest. All you did was cry until you got your own way and
then gurgle about it happily until you wanted something else. You haven’t
changed.”
“Shut up. You loved me.”
“Well I couldn’t get rid of you. All you’ve done is toddle after me ever since
you started to walk. You know they praise that in most children - in you we all
just groaned.”
“And when I started to speak sentences?”
“Oh darling boy; we’re still waiting.”
It is an awkward return to form; the only clue to its awkwardness being how
deeply they rely on reminiscence. She knows it is a shaky path they are
walking, and only a matter of time before they fall; and she suspects that he
knows it too. She feels the giddiness even more in public when she knows that
he is watching her, the knowledge prickling the back of her neck as she dances
with other men, flirts and simpers and weaves a constant web of balance around
herself. She wishes constantly that he had one fraction of her restraint – and
even her restraint feels like a flimsy and badly erected screen. One day at one
of their balls she drifts over to him after a dance to stand by the wall as
though the flow of the dance floor has dropped her there quite casually. She
dares a glance at him and realises it was a mistake.
“What’s the matter?” she asks it airily and unconcerned. He scowls.
“Must you really dance with every idiot who asks?”
“Yes. You should do it too. There’s always a girl in want of a partner.”
“I don’t want to,” he tosses his head, sniffing – “I want to dance with you.”
“Quelle stupide –”she mutters and looks away quickly, remembering suddenly
another time when she said that on another night he had asked her to dance. She
bites her lip to drive the memory away.
“You can’t,” she says, harsher than she really means to.
“I knowthat,” he snaps. He reaches for her hand but she moves away quickly and
the grasp becomes a pinch at her wrist making her scowl, snatch her arm back
and walk away quickly. Don’t thinkshe rebukes herself sternly – don’t think
about how much you want it too. Don’t think about the way you made that face
behind you sad, don’t think about his eyes that reflect every damned feeling of
the moment, don’t think how beautiful we would look dancing together, don’t
remember the first time we kissed, don’t –
That she has to tell herself so sternly is bad enough – testament to how badly
she is failing. Worse she knows that she is not entirely listening to her own
good advice; she is thinking about it alland too much. It seems now as though
this was all so easy when he was not here. You can shut off the sound of the
sea singing when you cannot see it but not when it is there, close and cold in
your face.
Two days later – restless days in which they do not quite find their way out of
this forced distance that becomes frosty when left untouched – he comes into
her room without even knocking. She has been on the point of getting into bed
but she looks at his face – guilty, distressed and angry, and sighs, forgetting
how much she has been wanting him to come to her.
“What have you done now?”
“What have Idone? Nothing. Who said I’d done anything?” Anatole’s voice is
high, almost shrill; if she were not so tense with him she could have laughed
at it.
“It was Captain Lukov wasn’t it? Whatever did you say to him? He walked past me
with his nose in the air just after speaking to you. What did you do?”
Anatole sighs dramatically, as if to attempt to make her feel bad for
suspecting that he has to have done something.
“I told him to go to hell,” he grunts shortly.
“And may one ask why?” Anatole struggles to keep her eye and failing looks down
at the carpet, scuffing it with his foot – “Stop that.”
“He asked if I could recommend him to my sister”.
She stares at him for a moment and shakes her head - it is so apparent how
aware he is that this was not the right response to give to such a request. She
rolls her eyes so hard her head moves with it.
“And it occurs to you of course that this is an inappropriate response?”
He opens his mouth as though to answer her properly but closes it again
scowling and flings himself into a chair beside her bed, slumping and pouting.
“I don’t care! I don’t care about appropriate.I’m done with it I tell you – I’m
done with all these idiots wanting something out of you. Why shouldI help? Why
do you let them, eh?”
He growls it at her accusingly and she feels that growl reverberate low down
inside her in a startlingly pleasant manner at the same time as it ignites the
only kind of anger she can never put out. He is the only person she ever gets
to fight with and she does not even stop herself from rising to the bait.
“I do what I have to do. It’s about time you started to do the same.”
“What you haveto,” he sneers – “Does that mean you have to let strangers touch
you? Make love to you? Get more out of you than I could and I –”
“Yes!” she spits it back before he can say the thing that will stop her – “Yes
I have to and more when it comes to it. You saunter back after all these years
and think you can just do what you want. Well I’ve had to play this game every
damn day since I was ten years old and you think I’d stop just because you
don’t like it? You think it’s so easy but you don’t know anything, do you hear?
You think I like it? Sometimes I look in the mirror and can’t tell who I’m
looking at, I pinch myself every day to remember how to feel and sometimes I
could just –” she reins it back before she catches herself out in something too
appalling – she is not even sure what it is she could do, kill someone or
herself she would not like to say. Her fists are clenched, pushing into the
mattress beneath her and she nods, feeling her nostrils flare in a shuddery
expulsion of breath – “Yes,” she nods again – “Yes I do what I have to. I
always have. And when they tell me I have to marry someone I’ll do that too –”
“No!” she is almost glad he leaps in because she realises she is trembling,
brimming with frustration and disgust at it all – “No, not that. I won’t let
you – I’ll fight anyone who tries –”
“For what? My honour? You men – what would you do? Marry me?” She forces a
bitter tinkling parody of a laugh – “You can’t.You never could. It was a game
little brother – just a game we played to try and forget. Even if I wanted to
–”
For a moment she thinks she is the one who has started to cry and she breaks,
off gasping for air. But it is not her who is crying; Anatole is, his face
crumpling in on itself like a ruined letter, utterly failing to sniff back
angry, ugly tears. With the flood inside threatening to drown her she has
managed not to cry but this is the one thing she is defenceless against and she
starts to cry too.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean it, come here –”
She holds her arms out helplessly and he comes to her so fast and so readily,
stumbling head first into her arms, that she has to close her eyes against the
wave of guilt that hits her for making him sad. He buries his face in her
shoulder, holding her gracelessly around the waist and, she thinks, all but
trying to crawl into her lap. She sighs and kisses the top of his head,
stroking the back of his neck where it’s soft and velvety, like tickling a dog
behind the ears, rocking slightly, murmuring –
“Don’t. Don’t cry. It’s alright, I’m sorry, darling don’t cry –”
She can feel him relax quickly beneath her stroking fingers, fingers that so
well remember where to stroke, where makes him smile and where to soothe. He
looks up at her with tearful eyes that make her feel like the meanest,
wickedest creature in the world for so much as trying to tell him this truth –
“You –” his lip quivers, eyes wide – “You – don’t want to marry me?”
Trust Anatole to find the only thing she had said that was a lie. She does not
want to answer, does not want to hurt herself by admitting the lie, by saying
of course I do, I always have, I wish, I wish, I wish.But she wants to hurt him
by perpetuating the lie even less and in this and, she hopes, only this – she
will always be unselfish.
“I’m sorry,” she says “That was mean of me, of course I do – I always – but it
doesn’t matter –” she stops, frowns at the way he looks at her, the way as if
to say that if she carries on and says what she means to it doesn’t matter what
I want– he will only get upset again – “It doesn’t matter,” she says again,
shaking her head and forcing herself to smile. For the first time in so long it
feels difficult to do and somehow it doesn’t work on him anyway. He starts to
frown and his fingers reach for her face almost as though he would push her
lips into a smile he likes better. He used to do that, she remembers, never
liking to see her sad.
Everyone has always wanted her to smile, she thinks, and she resents it in
everyone but him. She knows there is nothing more behind his wish than a
genuine desire that she be happy.
“And you’re always so happy,” she said once.
“Yes” he shrugged “Why shouldn’t I be? Life is so fun, so full of things to do,
so many nice things Lelya, please be happy too.”
“Will you still have any left if you give me some of yours?”
She remembers how eagerly he nodded, how willingly he acted out taking
happiness from his heart and dumping it into her lap. He is a wellspring of
happiness, invigorating and refreshing. She wonders that she did not die of
thirst without it. She feels her heart filling up from that well again now and
kisses the fingers against her cheek. He smiles, his fingers sliding into her
hair, and he lies down across the bed pulling her down with him and it all
comes back to her – all the feeling, the memory she was trying to quell. All
those years of touching and being touched, the gentle exploration that became
too fierce too fast perhaps but never stopped being wonderful, an adventure she
never wanted to stop having. So much nostalgia in the way he touches her and so
much that is new; they knew each other so completely before, had come into
awareness of one another’s bodies as though this skin were a part of their
imaginary world to be explored again and again, delighting in the familiarity.
It is all still there.
It is still there but layered now with so much else; something deeper than a
need to remember, an urgency in these new and burning kisses that leave her
gasping and breathless, afraid of how much she wants this and of how young this
desperation makes her feel. She does not have to ask if he feels it too; he was
always terrible at holding back and his hands, now allowed, are everywhere upon
her, her skin singing and seeming to vibrate in the wake of each caress. All
the tightness in her chest escapes her lips in a groan of his name; it feels
like the only prayer she has ever spoken, so sweet she says it again –
“Anatole – please,”
She feels him smile, pressing his face to hers, rubbing against her cheek to
cheek, such shocking tenderness she feels the tears slip out from under her
eyelids.
“Please what?” His breath so close to her ear makes her shiver, as though her
whole body is laughing and crying all at once.
“Everything –” it is almost a sob – “Please everything. I want everything.” He
smiles again –
“You sound like me”.
“I amyou.”
“Then I’m beautiful.” His smile fades beneath an intensity of feeling she can
read completely; he is looking at her as though he never saw her before – “So
lovely, Hélène, so beautiful, my sister”. It is new, these names; she realises
how rarely they said them before, simply brotherand sisterwere always enough
and more, after all, than most lovers can share, but they need this now, she
realises – they need to share names as lovers always do to make this new love
real.
“Anatole,” she says again, and hopes it is enough to express it all – it is so
musical, so beautiful, this word. It tingles on her tongue.
“I need –” she says – “I can’t –” they throw out fractured sentences searching
for the other to complete them, not quite knowing what she needs, or what she
cannot. But he does. She knew he would.
“You can -” he says and then not I love youbut “- I know you,” and it makes her
smile because it is true.
“Yes!” she gives back dark kaleidoscope eyes – “Yes, I know you too,” and she
knows they both know what they mean and that nobody else has to.
“I want –” he says and she remembers this too – “I need – Hélène I have to –”
“Yes,” she nods fiercely – “Yes”.
She rolls onto her back and when he kisses her this time it is hungry and
savage, spilling down over her chin and trailing across her throat, pressing
his head into her as though he could disappear into her skin, kissing her
collar and kneeling over her to scoop her completely into his arms. She feels
smaller than she did, his arms so much stronger than she remembers, pulling her
to sit up briefly, dragging her nightgown over her head. She hears him groan
out a curse as she drops back, looking at her, eyes dark and predatory.
“Fuckyourself,” she teases, echoing his curse. He smirks, a more sensual, far
more dangerous version of the old smirk –
“No,” he grins – “no, I really don’t think so.”
And then she could not let a tease escape her for anything in the world when he
dips his head to cover her breasts with kisses, licking and sucking at her
nipples, digging his fingers into her skin hard, now growling a word she used
to hear from him so often into every inch of skin he presses a kiss to –
“Mine.”  
She has been afraid of this, this little word; the one he has always liked so
much. Afraid that if he tried to say it to her it would hurt her because it was
not true, because it could never be true, not really, not like this. But it is
true. She knows suddenly it is the only thing that is. That whoever else she
has to belong to, this will be the only truth her heart will accept;
“Yes,” she says, her hands steady now, working the front of his shirt – “Yes
yours, I promise –” she wishes she could explain that this promise will always
come first to her beside any other wedding vow she might ever have to make but
this is hardly the time if there will ever be a time. She swirls whichever way
he touches her, heady with lust, the same lust she can see in his eyes and he,
reduced to the first words he ever learnt and nothing else – mineand I wantand
they are his prayer like his name is hers, the only prayer he will ever mean
and right now it is for her and she thinks yes, yes this is what I am, I was
born to be an idol, I was born for worship.It has to be a kind of madness that
such grandeur fills her so easily but if it is she delights in it and the
savage press of him against her, his need to be inside her so perfect and so
pure she could almost laugh for joy.
He is still kissing her, brushing paths down her body with his lips, tracing
rivers across her skin and he is still half dressed but needs her now too much
for perfection and she locks her legs around him guiding him in shuddering to a
stillness in the intense bliss of having him fill her, a moment of calm before
the frenzy takes over, and he is slamming into her in ecstatic urgency,
cramming them back together like a broken favourite toy, his fingers
remembering, stroking to make the reformed thing perfect. She used to fix
things for him all the time and knows, now more than ever, heady with the bliss
of it, yes, yes, some things really can be fixed.She wonders for one second
what they were before this life and knows that whatever it was they can only
have been one thing then, splendid and gloriously complete and ohshe thinks,
feeling him so deep inside her, pressed so completely close, his head fitting
in against her neck – oh yes we’ve done this before.Like a memory of another
life and then it goes and all there is is sensation and flying and shuddering
like feathered wings all around her.
She knows that knowledge changes from moment to moment but in that moment she
knows with perfect clarity that they are the only two people in the world. She
clutches for his hand in the sheets and finding it thinks of their world, the
one they made, and turning to him smiling she knows he will know what she means
when she runs there with him now.
“Come with me,” she says and he does.
__x__
I kinda hate writing sex scenes? I worry that every one I write is the same and
every time I try not to go reference Plato’s origin of love in some way and
invariably I do it anyway and I’m rolling my eyes at myself like oh-there-i-go-
I did-that-two-halves-or-a-whole-trope- again. Ah well. Also I may have been
listening to “No-one Else”  from Great Cometwhilst writing the second to last
verse, don’t know if anyone noticed that sneak in there.
On a side note I re-wrote a few lines of the previous chapter, not enough to
have to go back and re-read the whole thing but now instead of just accepting
Dolokhov and Anatole’s relationship straight off Helene is more guarded about
it and determines to withhold judgement until after meeting him. It’s a fairly
minor change but relevant to the next chapter. :-)
 
 
 
 
 
***** Dolokhov, April 1802 *****
 
Dolokhov, April 1802
 
“You’ll help us though, won’t you, eh Dolokhov?”
Anatole is pacing back and forth in front of him, his inability to keep still
becoming almost irksome. Dolokhov watches him thoughtfully, wondering why, why
this idiot boy out of all the people in the world? He asks the question in a
mixture of certainty that Dolokhov will help and apprehension – probably as to
what he would do if he did not.
“Yes,” he does everything but roll his eyes. “Yes, I’ll help.”
He wonders when it became impossible to refuse Anatole anything. At what stage
did he become so hopelessly and irrevocably hooked. There is a part of his mind
that is still screaming faintly at him to get out while he still can, but it
has been singing the same tune for two years now and the time is long past when
he could have stopped to listen.
And Hélène. He sighs – he tries not to think of Hélène, tries to steer away
from admitting that he has fallen in love with her as well. It had not been
what he expected in the least. So many years of Anatole telling him he hadto
introduce them and he not really wanting it, not wanting to know her, trying to
hate her purely as the person who kept Anatole away – always a little away from
him even when they were lying side by side. He thinks of all those nights,
sometimes literally in the process of cooling off, of regaining breath, when he
would start to talk about her and the illusion that he could mean anything to
Anatole seemed to fall right away, trampled beneath the very idea of her feet.
He had not stopped to really imagine what she might be like.
It was more of a shock than it should have been. He found himself waiting
throughout almost all of January, busying himself with other matters until he
had thoroughly convinced himself that Anatole really did not plan to contact
him after all. Then the call had come in early February on a bitter cold day,
opening the door just a crack to accept the letter without letting in too much
of the cold. He read it quickly and folded it crisply as though it were a
matter of business. Even so his sister, watching with quick bird-like eyes, had
cocked her head on one side and commented as soon as their mother was out of
the room;
“It’s from him, isn’t it?”
He looked at her, half annoyed and half impressed, not bothering to lie –
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“I’ve been invited to go over there tomorrow night. He wants me to meet his
sister.”
Galina’s eyes had narrowed and he could not help but wonder how much of the
little he had not told her she had managed to work out all the same.
“Do you want to?”
“I –” he groaned, closing his eyes and sitting down heavily – “I don’t know.
It’s – it’s complicated.”
“But you’re going.”
“Oh, am I?”
“Yes of course. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Well if it’s an order –”
“It is. You’ve been going around like a moon-sick calf –”
“I havenot.”
“Moon-sick calf,” she repeated, so wryly comic that he could not help but
laugh.
“Fine.”
“You could ask them to come here you know – if you wanted,” she said this far
more shyly and it made him wince both to understand that this – to overcome her
nervousness enough to offer to meet people she did not know for him -  was the
best thing she had to offer him, and out of imagining Anatole and his sister in
their house. That last filled him with that bitter nostalgic mix of shame and
savage pride.
“I’ll go –”he winked at her – “Since my superiors command.”
What had he expected? He thinks about it now – he had expected, in as much as
he had imagined her at all – to be Anatole but a female version. He had not
been entirely disappointed in this, but then – he sighs to think of her. The
house had been quiet when he arrived. He had taken enough time over these weeks
to no longer be daunted or even impressed by the size and audacity of the
place. On arrival he had been ushered up to a suite on the first floor he later
discovered were her own personal rooms, his footsteps echoing on the marble
stairway and falling silent at her door. He wished his breathing would have the
same good grace.
Thank god for Anatole, who had greeted him with open arms as though he had
truly missed him, wide and welcoming with the usual easy smile and a manner
like a restless and excitable pony. His first sight of Hélène was from over her
brother’s shoulder, and he was never more glad of the distraction preventing
him from gaping at her or even having to visibly adjust to her existence.
Because she was beautiful, of course. He had expected that, even if he had not
expected the extent of it. He wondered if they had dressed to match on purpose,
but it did not make their beauty any less daunting. He had been sure Anatole
with his heightened, besotted senses would have exaggerated somewhat and he
found himself almost flustered on being proved wrong.
“Dolokhov – my sister Hélène,” Anatole had presented her breathlessly, clearly
bounding with excitement and pride in her, almost pushing her forward. She in
turn was more reserved, almost chilly, Dolokhov thought – where Anatole was a
running river she was sunlight on snow, not quite warm enough yet to melt.
“So,” she said archly, extending a pale hand – “You’re the man who’s been
fucking my brother.” She raised an eyebrow as he kissed her hand, and a smile
lurked in the corner of her mouth, and with that one utterance his every
assumption changed. Far from being the perfect double of her brother that he
had expected, this was someone far more like him. Someone in control of all
those same emotions that ran unchecked in her brother, someone who was used to
dissembling and pretence, who used them as weapons, sharpening her smile on the
edge of her lies.
He realised too that she was testing him; that, more duplicitous even than just
to lie she was throwing him a challenge of utter honesty in the hope of
tripping him up. He looked up at her as he would at a man he was sizing up over
a card table. For one long charged moment there was the awareness that they
could very easily be enemies. He glanced at her secretive smile and felt more
in danger of her than he had perhaps of anyone. He did not want to be her
enemy.
“I cannot deny it,” he took a step back, shoulders conceding her a win before
adding – “To think we should have so much in common.”
She blinked at him for a moment; a searching, bird-like look on her face that
reminded him curiously of his sister, and then she smiled. Without the false
smile ever dropping from her face her features relaxed into a bright, genuine
grin.
“Yes,” she nodded – “Yes, alright”. It was a strange thing to say but he found
that he knew exactly what she meant – it meant, he thought yes alright you can
stay– even if she had not entirely made her mind up yet - and it occurred to
him that she had come to him with a similar set of anxieties to his own.
Anatole had simply looked from one to the other of them, delighted that the two
people dearest to him were together at last and understanding nothing of what
had just occurred.
He had abandoned any expectations whatsoever. It was impossible, he decided
logically, to gauge where this could go, and when; and nothing had been pushed
but they had fallen together easily all the same. Not into bed, not
immediately; although the awareness of that possibility had hung like a
delicious scent between them all that evening. In the end they had played cards
and she – he was not entirely surprised - had beaten him. Not to the tune of
very much but he had a garnered an even greater respect for her when she
actually took his money rather than shame him with a refusal. All the same he
had found her winnings in his inner coat pocket later that night after he left
them. He wondered which of them had slipped it back to him.
He found himself every few minutes on the brink of feeling like an intruder.
They were madeto be together; it was obvious. He realised too that the way they
were around him was a freedom they allowed themselves with nobody else and
found himself feeling oddly honoured to be witness to it. At the same time it
hurt him, seeing them guard their love so closely, even from each other. They
would each look the other’s way with a certain degree of intensity only when
they thought the other was not looking; it was like a dance, where they fitted
one another’s steps perfectly without ever looking in the same direction. He
found himself wanting to move the world to make the two of them a possibility,
wanting this almost more than to be a part of it.
Almost. But he did want to be a part of it; wanted it more than almost
anything. He had smarted before at the idea of having to share Anatole with
anyone, but he realised now that he had come too late for that already. It was
her who was sharing Anatole with him, if even she could claim such ownership.
They came as a pair, it was utterly unarguable – but seeing her and speaking to
her now he realised he had been wrong to want it any other way.
Somehow or other he found himself fitting into their lives. He did not force it
and perhaps this was how it became possible, whilst at the same time never
feeling actually easy. Every social interaction for Hélène was a complex game
in which she had already marked out several moves ahead. He appreciated that,
intrigued in finding a mind that worked in a manner so parallel to his own –
though at the same time it made every moment of interaction precarious. After
those first few meetings he found himself wondering that he had ever imagined
her and Anatole to be alike beyond a physical resemblance and then, after the
first time he woke up beside them both, he wondered why his initial judgement
had ever changed.
He remembers that morning almost better than the night preceding it. He had
woken up first, never fully at ease when sharing a bed and always on guard. It
was like a dream to be here anyway, but even with this already well defined
sense of unreality he had been touched and surprised on turning and seeing them
beside him. In their sleep they had all but abandoned him, curling together in
a way that was more animal than human, foreheads almost touching on the pillow,
shoulder to shoulder and so close it was as though they felt the need to be so
painfully, even in their sleep. He stared at them that morning unable to
reconcile these sweet children with everything that had happened the night
before. He moved Hélène’s hair out of her eyes with the most infinite
tenderness, afraid to wake her but needing to see if her expression as what it
had to be. Anatole, as he knew already, slept like a child, lips in a permanent
pout like a little boy who has fallen asleep only on account of playing too
hard all the day before, nothing but the most perfect innocence in every line
of his face. Even after two years it tugged at something in his heart every
time to see him. It seemed almost wrong for them to be together like this, he
looked so like a twelve year old boy. He brushed Hélène’s cheek as though she
were a baby bird and any movement might break her so intent he was on not
waking her. He was right, though it shocked him to be so – her expression in
her sleep was identical to her brother’s. He felt like an intruder, seeing her
like this – he had expected it of Anatole but she worked so hard every waking
minute to keep her masks in place that had almost convinced himself she would
still have that same closed off expression in her sleep.
Suddenly, having seen her naked was nothing. He felt something prick at the
back of his eyes and cursed himself for it silently. He should have known, he
supposed, really known – how much of an act her bravado was, how little she had
really put aside the ridiculous hopes and ideas that Anatole had never been
able to repress or hide. Seeing her like this he knew painfully that while she
may have accepted logically so much more than Anatole had managed, her heart
was still a stranger to it and that acceptance did nothing but hurt her. Her
blatant vulnerability hurt him even more than her brother’s, and in his heart
he saw himself standing over the both of them as they slept, growling at the
rest of the world to back off.
Anatole stirred in his sleep, burrowing closer to his sister with a whimpery
noise Dolokhov had heard so many times before. He nuzzled in closer, as if that
had even been possible, and followed the whimper up with a mumble of
contentment. A few moments later Hélène stirred as though in belated response,
but to his surprise she half turned her head, looking at him with bleary eyes
and mumbled with a sleepy smile –
“Fedya – too far – s’cold.” She arched her back towards him and he sighed,
settling back in against her and reaching to hold them both if he could have in
the compass of his arm.
Somehow, he thinks, he has become a part of them, without ever daring to ask
himself if he is a part they could live without or not, and even in these early
weeks he has seen them starting to cling more needily to each other every time,
seen them react to each new instance of realisation that they cannot have
everything they want with a greater desperation to be close. He does not have
to imagine hard to think what it must be like for them to have to spend so much
time in company and together and be unable to touch. He knows it well enough –
the feeling of needing just to reach to someone, to brush something off their
face or touch their arm in reassuring intimacy and not being able to simply do
it. He knows how it leaves the fingers screaming for that contact that seems as
necessary as taking a drink. He, perhaps alone of anyone, has watched them and
knows it cannot get better.
And so, though he feels something like a fatalistic jab of dread to have
Anatole come to him with this, it is not entirely unexpected. He looks at his
friend, at his wide open, beseeching eyes – so confident in his plan and so
clueless as to how to carry it out, and he sighs.
“Yes,” he says as he knew he would – “Yes, I’ll help you run away.”
__x__
 
I gotta credit zedrobberfor a lot of this chapter because they’ve written a few
things absolutely identically to this in in their 2016 series fic Now and
Then.I’m not stealing I promise, we just have a lot of shared head canons in
relation to these three and I didn’t go into more detail on their early
interactions because Zed’s done it already in that fic, e.g. I haven’t written
their first night together because it would just be copying so I did the
morning after instead. I should probably take this moment to thank the
aforementioned zedrobberfor being a beautiful beta while I’m at it. THANK YOU
NUGGET, HAPPY EGG DAY! :-)
***** Vasili, April 1802 *****
 
 
Vasili, April 1802
 
The prince is not a stupid man but he finds himself these days beginning to
think that this has become an irrelevance in light of all his other faults. He
knows they have to be numerous though he is not, when he dares to really
contemplate it, fully certain exactly what these faults are and finds himself
putting it down to a vague over – fondness, indulgence and preference towards
his beautiful children. He knows in an abstract way that it is wrong to have
any such preference; that he has somehow failed on a parental level. He draws
this conclusion from things he has heard.
He wonders sometimes why this affection, if that it was it is, does not extend
to his eldest. He is not quite honest enough to admit that he sees too much of
himself as a young man in Prince Hyppolit; too much dull unattractiveness and
mediocrity. He supposes they should have bonded over this at some point but
they never have.
He ishonest enough to realise that the other two frighten him. But that sounds
like a terrible word to use in relation to his own children – unnervehim then.
He feels a distance, almost a  disbelief in them and has half wondered at times
if they are even his, and then their continual and constantly startling
synchronicity alienates him still further. He can feel – as it were – a force
around them that it would hurt an outsider to run up against.
He wonders what it is he should have done. A weak paternal instinct frequently
informs him how intently he favours his daughter, loves her even, perhaps
beyond everything else. Her existence bewilders him; filling him both with a
surging paternal pride and with disbelief that this curious precious creature
can have anything to do with him. He does not know her. he does not think he
could ever know her. It seems to him almost obscene to think that beneath that
beautiful, almost luminous shell of her there is a heart that beats and a mind
that thinks. Of course he has heard people suggest that she is really not in
possession of either such attributes but he puts this down to a sullen sort of
esteem, just further proof of her unarguable beauty from the heartbroken heads
of too many overthrown suitors.
More and more Vasili finds himself at almost every social event, overwhelmed
with praise and compliments of his daughter’s charm and beauty; praise, in
truth, that he accepts delightedly but with an all but cringing awkwardness,
uncertain really how any of this is at all his doing.
He knows why she refuses them all. It is the truth he likes to think about
least of all. He has found himself wondering deeply ever since Anatole came
home if he had not made a terrible mistake in sending the boy away to begin
with. The easiest part to admit is that the army has not improved him. More to
the point, and by far the worst, is that his ulterior motives for sending him
away appear – if it could actually be possible – to have become still more of a
concern since his son’s return.
At first the prince tried not to see. But it is impossible and once seen cannot
be avoided. The way he looks at her! That alone, he thinks, should be a scandal
to shake the whole of society. He sees him do it everywhere, those eyes
destroying her, taking so much more than they should; he finds himself wanting
to physically drag them into separate rooms; anything to avoid what surely the
rest of his world has noticed too.
Of course it is almost the same as the way every man looks at her. But it is
worse, unacceptably worse. Even if they were not who they were there has always
been something frighteningly predatory in Anatole, something fierce and brutal
and unchangeable, something dark enough to chill a father’s heart. He does not
hold back when he wants something, does not even seem to see why he should. The
prince can see too well how this at least has been his fault and he is
determined that thisat least his son cannot have.
The worst of it is that he has seen her looking back, something shameful in her
smile when they pass each other, something too alike in the list of their
lowered heads when they talk together quietly in corners or in full view of the
world to see. Their faces are always just slightly too close, their gestures
too obviously flirtatious. He is at a loss what he could possibly do. He has,
like any parent surely, instilled it in his children to love one another and
now how can he possibly tell them not to?
It should not be like this. He fears himself going into the darkness of old age
one of those sad hundreds that wail where did I go wrong, how did I fail
themand most pathetically of all – But I did it for the best? Didn’t I do it
for the best? He fears this beyond any concern for his children’s happiness.
It is on his mind when he returns home from the club that morning. It is the
early edge of autumn and the chill in the air is new and ripe, biting at the
ears and fingers. He finds himself disliking it; something portentous in the
white of the sky today and the whistle of the wind. It is the kind of wind that
speaks movement, change. He is not entirely certain he welcomes either of these
things. The chill seems to follow him inside and it seems as though none of the
servants will meet his eye. He finds himself knowing that something has
happened but not wanting to abase himself by asking anybody what it is. The
house seems quiet; more than it should be at this time of day. For all their
sly creeping manners and the guilty turns of head when he walks into a room his
children are usually bordering on noisy. If anything they are sometimes
tooloud, too dramatic. They leap apart too quickly when he comes in, only
proving that they were standing too close – at the very least – before he did
so. The silence shouldbe welcoming, a relief; but it is not.
In the main drawing room where everyone is most like to be found at this hour
he sees only Hyppolite, lounging idly on a couch, yawning and adjusting to
being awake at midday and idly watching a servant stoke the fire.
“Where are they?” Vasily hears himself ask quietly. Hyppolite shrugs
expansively, but he is bored and – Vasily realises – a little irritated by the
question. It occurs to him that he has made yet another mistake, one of the
small ones that all fit together to create the entire air of wrongness with
which he treats his eldest son. He knows how left out Hyppolite has always
felt, ignored by both himself and his siblings. He should have said something
more genial, made more of a pleasantry before implying once again how little
thought he gave the boy.
“Damned if I know” he mutters, face scrunching sullen, years of being run away
from twisting the already blighted landscape of his face.
“Have they even come down yet?” he unconsciously raises his eyes towards the
stairs leading up to the family bedrooms, ostentatiously poised on the brink of
going to find out.
“I wouldn’t” Hyppolite yawns – “They’re probably –” The prince flashes him a
face that dares him to finish that sentence – “Not awake” he waves a wrist
lamely and looks away.
Vasily sighs and moves on towards his private study; his constant defence, move
away, do not think, engage insidiously not directly. If in doubt – disengage.
He closes the door behind him ready to feel the relief of solitude but the
letter is sat on his desk like an intruder. He sees it before he even has time
to take off his coat. For a moment he stares at it, feeling painfully the
invasion of his inner sanctum by this simple rectangle of white. He knows, with
gut curdling instinct that here lies the cloud that is poised to crack thunder
through every hall and corner of the Kuragin household.
He picks up the letter as though it might bite him. It has been sealed lazily
and the seal cracks when the letter lies in his hand. Here it is then,
pointless to wish it away. He unfolds the small sheet with heavy fingers.
Seven words. If he were a more whimsical man he could have laughed at how
little it took to bring down a family. Seven little words, scrawled in his
daughter’s friendly, sweetly intimate hand.
Gone travelling.
Will write.
Anatole and Hélène.
The words shine up at him like his daughter’s smile scrawled onto a page,
dazzling and damning, too small even for a small piece of paper, too black
against the white, too inconsequential. And just like that, they are gone then.
Just like that they’ve vanished leaving nothing behind, not even the whispered
word elopementthat creeps erroneously into his mind. He is not sure it can even
apply. He is not even sure what would be worse; for them to come back somehow
married or never come back at all.
He sits down at his desk heavily with the letter, such as it is, still in his
hand. He stares at the words for longer than is sensible, as though by
continued staring they could somehow be made different. He cannot force himself
to imagine for a moment, despite the lightness of the words, that there is
anything innocent in this sudden departure. He can see it all too clearly,
almost hear their voices in this room in the smallest hours of the morning.
They would never normally even seesuch hours from this side of the day. He can
see them, little as he wants to, slipping down the stairs, holding on to each
other, bright eyed and whispering, trying not to giggle with the first sun only
just cracking the horizon, the first shadows greying across the hall. He can
see them crouched over his desk, laughter in their eyes, his son’s hand on the
small of his daughter’s back, one of them whispering what do we write?His
daughter’s voice no wait I’ve got it!Trying to keep from laughing too loudly at
the brevity of her words and the jaunty air of carelessness with which she
imbues them. He can see them every time he closes his eyes, hands across the
their mouths to hold the laughter in, making more noise in hushing each other
than they ever do in speaking. He can see their eyes laughing together,
flashing with the same fire, too alike for comfort as she seals the letter with
light fingered hands dropping it like a token on the desk.
And we’re done!She laughs and she buries her bright shining face in the crook
of her brother’s shoulder and he presses his face into her hair as he has seen
them do before, pretending not to sniff at each other’s skin, pretending not to
shiver at the contact, pretending and pretending not to be in love.
Could it all come down on him so heavily? He wonders how such a thing could
have happened, such a love. He feels leaden beneath a burden of self-pity,
pushing the letter away from him across the table. He opens his eyes to stop
seeing the thoughts that flit behind them and leans forward on the desk, face
held in his hands, silent.
__x__
***** Balaga, April 1802 *****
Ok so, I started writing the troika driver in this chapter as Balaga, having
had a moment of brain death and forgetting that he had only known Anatole and
Dolokhov six years in 1811 so it can’t possibly canonically BE Balaga at this
point but I clearly completely cannot math. I may at some point change the POV
to generic troika driver but honestly – it was way more fun to write it as
Balaga. He is just for fun after all.
 
Balaga, April 1802
 
The first rule, and the only one that ever really matters is not to ask
questions. It has stood him in good stead for years, and he is not about to
break it now. The only other rule, if he has one, is that he does not allow
himself to get emotionally involved. It is not normally difficult. In this
instance however he does find himself to be faintly compromised on the latter
rule, if only because he has known the Dolokhov boy since he was a child. The
troika driver could tell stories until the end of time about that boy with the
unruly hair and the unforgettably fierce blaze of defiance in the eyes, a boy
he remembers clattering down many a late night street in shoes that were too
big for him, always swerving just to the right side of trouble. The number of
times that rascal has jumped free rides on the back of his sleigh, always a
surprisingly respected leader of some group of city urchins, always
passionately committed to some endeavour or other just on or just off the right
side of legal.
For certain he has always liked that boy; though it occurs to Balaga that it is
probably past time he stopped thinking of him as a boy. My fine gentlemanhe
used to call him, more than half teasingly, in almost as little anticipation of
it becoming truer than it could for any other urchin. Almost. He could not have
said with all honesty that this apparent improvement in fortune was entirely
surprising. Not with this one, although Dolokhov has assured him that in this
case at least he is commissioning the job on behalf of a friend. Something in
the way he says friendtells Balaga something else as well. But it is more in
his nature to keep such knowledge close and thereby inspire loyalty rather than
to use it for bribery. It has been his experience that a certain kind of
loyalty can pay at least as well if not better than corruption after all.
So he asks only such questions as are needed; elopements are his bread and
butter after all. He asks where the young man lives, and then for the address
of the young lady. He does not even raise an eyebrow on their being one and the
same but comes privately to the assumption that he is dealing either with a
gentleman running away with a maidservant or a lady and her manservant. He does
not ruin it by asking; these across the border jobs are too much fun.
It is a surprisingly cold April morning, with a light drizzle and a weak
sunshine both easing their way through the clouds at once. It is an hour he
supposes a lot of people rarely see and for that novelty counts it one of his
favourite times of day.
Dolokhov is unusually quiet, and they pass through the lightly glistening
streets in silence until drawing into the right street and he tells him to wait
with the troika by the east side servants entrance. He is not sure he has ever
seen the man so quiet and apparently thoughtful. He jumps down from the sleigh
with a light and easy tread, motioning Balaga to wait and whistling softly at
the back door. A few moments later he hears a girl’s voice, clear as bright
crystal, in an excited whisper that carries easily across the yard –
“- didn’t even know we hada servant’s entrance!” followed by another voice like
the backing to her song -
“Well how did you expect them to come and go, eh?”
“Shh!” she laughs though her whisper is louder than his murmur – “You’ll wake
papa and –”
“- and all the rest, yes!” Dolokhov cuts in. “Can’t you both at least tryto be
subtle?”
“Sorry Fedya,” the young man mumbles and –
“Fedya, darling” the girl echoes, not modulating her whisper one whit into
something quieter but kissing Dolokhov brightly on the cheek in apology
instead. The sense of giddy excitement that emanates from them is palpable and
infectious; he knows this, it is one of his favourite things about elopements.
He gets only a quick glimpse of their faces and it is enough to make him almost
raise an eyebrow – it is obvious to look at them that his early assumptions
were wrong, that this is not even as straightforward as he imagined it would
be. But in truth he had not needed to see the identical glittering in their
eyes to work it out, her casually dropped papahas already given it all away.
Fascinating,he thinks, flicking the reins and driving out into the drizzle.
The rain clears up as the day goes on and as they drive he comes to know his
passengers enough to get a picture of their lives, enough in this case to find
himself almost caring. She sleeps for the first few hours, unused, he imagines,
to waking at this hour, dropping her head onto her brother’s shoulder in spite
of all his protestations. He overhears such snatches from the seats as to make
him wonder about all three of them.
“How anyone can sleep at a time like this –” the first voice is Dolokhov’s and
then the boy –
“She’s like a baby, the rocking puts her to sleep. Any time we travel anywhere,
I swear.”
When they make their first stop at roughly noon she stirs like a cat, blinking
around her as though surprised, adjusting herself to where they are,
remembering, perhaps, what they are doing. When she does she stretches and
smiles widely. The driver can see why anyone would fall in love with her when
she smiles like that. More than her though, he sees the way that Dolokhov
watches her, watches both of them, with a look of such careful tenderness – he
has only ever seen the man reserve that kind of look for his family.
As the day goes on and they ride into Poland the back seat becomes a spring of
excitable chatter tempered now and then with practical concerns, most of them,
as far as he can tell, of a financial nature. He understands that the couple
have drawn on their allowances for most of the year and that Dolokhov has made
all the actual arrangements. He learns that they will not be stopping in Poland
but going on to Budapest where they intend to stay indefinitely and with no
long term plan. More than once he hears Dolokhov try to bring this up and
Anatole – it has not taken him long to learn their names – brush it off airily
each time as though it will somehow sort itself out. Balaga wants to shake his
head at them in despair. They always think this, these runaways; so caught up
in the moment that they never think about the consequences or continuity of
these bright, glittering plans. He can tell that more than once Dolokhov is on
the verge of trying to bring this up himself, but that he cannot bring himself
to say anything that will quell the enthusiasm in those two high, bird-like
songs.
Towards the evening they pull up at an inn that he discovers now is only the
half way point of their journey. He has taken runaways here before, it being
the kind of place where questions do not tend to be asked. Nevertheless, he
smirks at the idea of this girl in a place like this.
“Oh dear,” he hears her remark, lighting down from the sleigh and straight into
the slush of the street, grimacing in disgust as it splatters the hem of her
skirt and looking around herself in curiosity and faint disgust. “I suppose I
should have dressed more like a peasant.”
The men groan; Dolokhov shakes his head –
“Yes, as I recall mentioning to you days ago. I even supplied the attire. What
was it again “Oh no, Dolokhov I couldn’t possibly! My skin will react terribly
to such coarse fabric!””
“Oh, do shut up Dolokhov.”
“Here,” Dolokhov sighs, wearily, fur cloak already in hand. “Wear this at
least. They’re not used to princesses around here.”
“You’renot used to princesses,” she grumbles, getting into the cloak all the
same.
Balaga finds himself watching the two of them go in with a discomfiting amount
of concern. He has been watching people for years; one of the necessities and
perks of the job, and he has become pretty decent a judge of character. In the
end, he has observed, there are only two categories of people that matter –
those who survive and those who do not. For all their brightness and their
gifts something niggles at the troika driver, telling him that these two do not
fit into the first category. He sees everything, the mingled tenderness and
excitement in their eyes, the way the man puts his hand on his sister’s back as
he opens the tavern door. For a brief loud moment light spills out across the
street, slipping out like a tongue, and then they are gone, swallowed up by it.
He tries to imagine them on the inside; in a world inhabited by other people,
the glow of firelight on her skin – he cannot imagine it. Not really.
When he looks away Dolokhov is looking up at him, watching him watching them
with a resigned look on his face, a shared I know.But what can one do? The
driver accepts his fare and wants to say something. This is the only other
rule; you don’t say things. He almost manages to maintain it. Dolokhov turns
away from him and just before he can follow the other two in, Balaga takes his
arm.
“Eh,” he grunts, gruffly – “Take care of yourself alright?”
Dolokhov’s lips pull in something that is not quite a grimace;
“I always do.”
“And –” he sighs, it should not be this way – these games are supposed to be
fun – “Take care of them.”
His not quite friend’s shoulders heave in a mirthless chuckle, more of a sigh;
“Hmm,” he nods affirmatively, echoing himself distantly – “Always do.”
It is not quite a true response, Balaga can hear it – it is too soon, he thinks
for an alwaysof this nature. But it will be true, one day. He supposes Dolokhov
only stopped himself from saying I always willbecause it would have sounded too
much like a promise.
He finds himself watching until they have all been swallowed up by the light of
the tavern. As he watches, the rain starts to fall lightly again and somehow,
in the last half hour the night has grown dark. He chews his lip for a moment,
looking at the squares of light across the road, sounds of voices from within
and god only knew how many emotions and sensations spilling with those voices
out through the cracks to be taken away by the shadows outside.
The driver pulls his hat down over his ears, turns the horses and rides back
into the dark.
__x__
***** Anatole, July 1802 *****
 
Anatole, July 1802
“This city –” Hélène rolls her eyes, coming through the door like a breath of
loud fresh air into the warm afternoon of the room. She shakes her head, palms
held upwards to a heaven she has no belief in – “It’s crazy! Vraiment –
entierement impossible!”Anatole laughs at her as she throws herself down on the
sofa. For all her near-constant complaining – bordering sometimes on utter
histrionics – he has never seen her more consistently relaxed, so openly and
honestly herself as she has been in these short sweet summer months. And if it
was only that and nothing else, he would already consider Budapest the most
beautiful city in the world.
“I think I could live here forever,” he shrugs, yawning lazily.
“Forever?” she blinks at him, leaning forward to take a drink from a tankard of
wine someone has left on the coffee table – “In rooms like this –in a place
made up of squares!”
“Squares?”
“Yes! Everywhere you go in this city you can take three turns left at any
minute and end up exactly back where you started! Every time – it’s not
natural! It’s so – so technical.”
She sighs enormously, fanning herself unnecessarily with her hand.
“So – what you’re saying –” Dolokhov drawls from the breakfast table, “Is you
don’t like it because it makes logical sense.”
“Are you still here?” she raises an eyebrow, half smiling. “Don’t you have
anywhere else to be? Ugh, this wine tastes so- grapey!”
“Magical,” Dolokhov grunts. “You know wine is actually made of grapesdon’t you,
princess?”
“Well, that’s no excuse.”
“So. The city’s too square and the wine tastes too much like the stuff it was
made from. Anatole darling, pass me the brandy, your sister’s killing me.”
Anatole wishes happily – as he often does these days – that he could freeze
this moment like a tableau  - this warm soft early afternoon, redolent of wine
and tobacco smoke, jasmine in the courtyard and a fresh, almost pleasantly
pungent air off the Danube slipping through the open window; all of it so
pleasant to his tingling senses. It feels as though this summer has brought him
out into the world for the first time, and he would like this sense of life and
freedom to last forever. It feels just now as though it could. Hélène, he
thinks, worries too much about the future, Dolokhov looks back too darkly at
the past. He does not see the need to ever waste his present thinking about
either and wonders if this tendency to focus almost solely upon what is
happening in the now is its own special kind of cognisance. Sometimes; not
often, but at times like this, he feels himself to be remarkably clever for
enjoying himself so much.
And why not? he thinks. He always imagined life could be like this. His
disposition is too happy for the world to waste it by making his life a sad
one. He always imagined things would turn out well and they always do seem to.
Even if this specific state of being cannot last forever, as Hélène says it
cannot, he cannot imagine an unpleasant alternative. He does not imagine an
alternative at all; there does not seem to be any need.
He looks from one to the other of his people and smiles fondly. It does not get
much better than this; listening to them bicker happily at each other whilst
they lounge with nowhere to be. He suspects Hélène misses it sometimes, but he
cannot say just now that he does. Waking up with them, dwelling on so many
pleasant sensations, exploring the city by day and night – when they can be
bothered, nobody to tell him what to do or not to do beyond Dolokhov’s gentle
reminders as to how they spend their money. He finds himself not wanting much
more than this at all. Not for now.
Dolokhov is not always here, of course. He comes and goes. Anatole would no
sooner ask him where or why any more than Dolokhov would dare ask how he would
choose if he ever had to choose between them. The question only occurs to him
as a comparison because Hélènehasasked it. He did not answer it, frowning and
asking her why she would worry about something so utterly ridiculous –
ridiculous because there could be no circumstance he can imagine that would
ever test the question. He cannot even understand why she would bother worrying
enough to ask.
Either way; when he is here, it is good, and when he is not it is still good.
Hélène gets frustrated sometimes, he knows, with nowhere to go and nobody – as
he pointed out - to tell her how beautiful she is. He would have thought he did
that enough for the whole world and has told her so on numerous occasions. She
smiles and blossoms under compliments and nowadays she does not dismiss them
just because they are onlyfrom him. She smiles a lot all the same, these days –
at least when she thinks he is not looking - and that tells him as much as
needs to know.
Remarkable, he thinks; to be in a strange place, where nobody knows who they
are, where they can hold hands, and touch and kiss and if anyone sees they will
only wonder at how sweet, how perfect and how beautiful the young couple are.
It is wonderful to him to be unknown, to be no more than what the people who
see them think them to be. He likes this more than almost anything, aching with
pride at being able to call her his, to not have to hide. It always felt
unnatural to not be able to touch her when every impulse was to do so, in
public or otherwise, even if just to stroke her arm or brush a strand of hair
out of her eyes. He ignores the fact that this feeling of naturalness comes
only from living under a protective blanket of lies. Liesis too strong a word,
he thinks. They let people make their own assumptions without correcting them;
that is all. He forgets sometimes that she wears a ring on her wedding finger
to encourage these assumptions.
They do not really go anywhere particular, to the opera sometimes, or out for
dinner; though Dolokhov is constantly reminding them of the need not to spend
money – he cannot really think why, although at the same time he cannot be
bothered to get into a more than childish argument about it. They walk over the
bridge and into the better side of town to look out over the river from the
Citadel hill. It is sweet up here with overhanging trees and night blossoming
flowers, like we’re becoming,Hélène says one evening. Up in the windy winding
paths they can walk and kiss without ever being seen, whispering all the same
because the place seems to ask for it. Hélène looks out across the river and
over to where their apartment lies, muttering about why Dolokhov had to get
them a place on the wrong side of the river. He can see what she means and it
is like two cities in one place, the crumbling grandeur of Buda and the
burgeoning squalor of Pest. You can smell garlic on the street just outside
their front door, hear women in the tenements over from the opera house singing
at all hours, bursts of music and tavern smells skittering down the street like
rats. He supposes it isthe poor side of town, but cannot bring himself to a
sense of guilt for liking it.
Here around the Citadel the churches crowd like old men around the bar and the
river glitters, stinking in the sun. The white turrets of the bastion blind the
eye at day but shiver like a ghost at night and everything is black and green
and gold, lying on the grass where the hill slopes away and the shadows of the
mountains and flowers in his sister’s hair and a thousand times I love youthat
drop so easily here without the need to check the words from running
uncatchable from the tongue.
Hélène says it’s like a dream but it seems to him like living.
And then there are the days they go nowhere, sometimes never even leaving the
bed. It is beyond splendid to have the luxury of this option. The landlords do
not bother them and the other tenants of the apartment block leave them to
themselves, expecting them to be a newly married couple and smiling indulgently
at them when they do come out in public. Sometimes Hélène trails out of bed at
around noon and he finds her leaning on the wrought iron balcony overlooking
the central courtyard, dressing gown trailing on the cracked tiled floors. He
could imagine her like this forever, like a story, her hair tumbling down her
back, one white arm on the black flaking railing. She is never even surprised
when he joins her, but he knows that she is smiling when he slides an arm
around her waist, kisses the top of her head, breathing in the smell of her
hair and the midday sunshine, greeting her with a murmured darlingand nothing
else. He can stay still like this until she finally moves to go back inside and
she laughs at him saying it is the only time he canstand still.
The apartment is a permanent mess – of course,as Dolokhov frequently tells
them. They go out for food more often than not, and leave the bags and wrapping
everywhere, cleaning only in bursts when it seems amusing to do so. Anatole has
tried cooking but for some reason Hélène generally tries to talk him out of it.
He watches Dolokhov cook instead – he at least seems to have some skill with
it. Unexpected skill, Anatole thinks – and a knack for making something
delicious out of really very little. Fedya rolls his eyes at Anatole when he
sits at the kitchen table watching him at the oven, tells him it is like having
a child and asks him if he wants to help by licking out the bowl. He supposes
it took him longer than it should have to realise he had not necessarily meant
this offer literally.
Some late mornings Hélène takes a step out of the bedroom, announces –“No, I
don’t think so,” and comes straight back to bed. They laugh beneath the light
sheets like children, drinking wine in bed and leaving bottles across the
floor. He could watch her forever lying around in the tangled sheets, explore
her soft indolent softness idly at first until a more urgent need takes over.
He tries to remember a time when he did not want her, was not at least half
obsessed with her. He is not sure it ever existed. Sometimes it frightens him
to want her so much after so long, his heart fluttering, body rocked by the
force of everything he wants.
These days are a sweet ride of sensation and discovery, every sweet and often
repeated action feeling like a new and surprising joy each time.
“I could go for forever like this,” he says, and Hélène smiles at him – he
cannot help but think there is something sorrowful in that smile, the same
smile Dolokhov gives him too when he hears him utter the sentiment. He knows
that their sorrow is wrong, that there is no need for it, that these happy
carefree weeks and months can be theirs forever. He imagines them continuing
this way until they are quite old and they indulge him in these imaginings even
though he knows they are exchanging some kind of look over his head.
He knows they want to tell him again that these days are a sweet dream from
which they will have to eventually wake up, but he still feels as though he is
the only one who is really awake.
“It’s wonderful,” Hélène says, overlooking the courtyard one afternoon, her
head nestling back against his chest. “It’s like a – a hiatus from real life.”
He smiles and shakes his head at her knowing better –
“It is real life,” he says.
__x__
 
Well that wandered into the realms of domestic fluff didn’t it? God I wish this
could happen. Ugh, can I just write happy times forever? I want it to end here
now please.
***** Hélène, November, 1802 *****
 
Hélène, November, 1802
 
Anatole says she thinks too much, and she imagines he must be right because he
seems happier than she is for thinking less. No, she is happy in this strange
holiday state of being – it would be wrong to say that she was not-but she
wonders why she has to make every lovely thing less lovely for herself by
knowing that it has to come to an end. She does not feel the same way about sad
things, and wonders if that makes her interminably sad on a level too deep for
her to reach. Real lifeas people talk about it – living in the real world –
funny how they only seem to reference it in terms to bad things, when the real
world can be so wonderful as well. Maybe Anatole does know better, lives
better, than she does. She languishes in a state of bliss; always afraid of
when it will end, afraid that she is doing happiness wrong.
She watches the others, in these days of domesticity – Dolokhov, she realises,
is always doing something useful, even when he is pretending not to. He writes
– she never knows what; cooks and fixes things, and disappears for days and
weeks at a time on whatever mysterious adventures he endeavours. She gets
frustrated with Anatole for not being more curious about it, but will never for
herself just come out and ask Dolokhov where he has been, and he never rises to
her not-quite questions and tactful probing. He sees straight through her.
Well, it is half of what she likes about him anyway. And Anatole – Anatole just
exists; he makes an art out of living. She imagines the whole world could be
happier, better even, if they followed his example.
For herself she has built up so many masks, so many layers of penetrating the
social structure around her that now, finding herself with no other task than
enjoying life, she fears she is wasting her talents. The masks, the society,
the permanent juggling act – it is what she is good at, just as Anatole has his
happiness and Dolokhov his industriousness. She is torn; knowing that she has
always hated putting these skills of hers to work and missing the need to do so
now that she does not. She feels guilty for missing it – the ballrooms, the
soirees, her life lead inside a facet of crystal, a dazzling light tracing a
path to the stars. She tries to explain it to Anatole, but it is like running
up against a wall, a wall with the mantra just be happywritten across it to the
exclusion of all else.
“You don’t have to dazzle with all those other stars,” Anatole says, finally,
smiling at her because it is obvious to him. “You shine so bright you already
half blind me.”
“That’s – lovely –” she sighs – “But it’s – I don’t know – this – living like
this – it’s like living in a shadow.”
“Then you’ll shine all the brighter,” Anatole grins at her so sunnily she
cannot help but smile. “And we’ll all get more joy out of your light.”
There is a funny sort of wisdom in Anatole’s simplicity and it pacifies her
overworking mind for more than a little while.
The warm summer days pass in a haze of loveliness; if they are still living in
the shadows then she begins to imagine the shadows are all gold. But as
September crawls to a close it brings contention gusting through the cracks in
their flat along with the cold autumn air.
It is the cold that brings on most of the early arguments. Money is finally
becoming an issue they cannot avoid and there is nothing that seems more
unnatural to Hélène than huddling under a blanket because they cannot afford a
consistent heating supply. One day in October, pretending to sleep on the sofa,
she even hears Anatole argue with Dolokhov about it, a thing she had never
imagined she would hear.
“You knew this would happen eventually –”
“No I didn’t! I didn’t know anything about it! Why should it come to it eh, why
didn’t you tell me?”
“I didtell you. Repeatedly. You chose not to listen. Anatole, there’s a point
where persistent ignorance and unwillingness to accept the facts stops being as
charming as you think it is.”
“I – I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just tell me what I should do.”
“You say you’ve tried to draw on your allowance?”
“Yes. Father’s cut us off. Just as of last week –”
“And naturally you’ve told her about this –”
“Of course I haven’t – I – how do I – I thought maybe you could –”
“Oh no you don’t. This is your mess. I said I’d help you as much as I could –
that doesn’t mean financing the two of you indefinitely through your mutual
ignorance.”
A long, near silence, in which she could hear Anatole breathing heavily.
“You can stop pouting. It won’t stop you needing to find a job.”
“A job?Are you serious? Youget a job –”
“I am notyour servant, nor am I your serf, Anatole Kuragin. In fact, do you
know – I’m gone. I’m out of here. Sort out your own mess for once.”
“But I – fine!”She finally sat up, realising it was no longer practical to
pretend to be asleep beneath the sounds of Anatole’s shouting – “Go then! See
if I care! We didn’t need you anyway!”
Dolokhov closed his eyes wearily, opened them again, looked at her, stretching
and sitting up on the sofa –
“You heard everything I suppose? Anything to add?”
“- and don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” Anatole finished, still
shouting.
“Like that, for example?”
Dolokhov threw his coat on jerkily, angrier she could tell, than his tone, so
much more measured than Anatole’s, would suggest.
“Fedya –” she began in a sigh. Dolokhov waved a hand at her dismissively and
stormed out the room.
“Idiot!” she snapped at Anatole, leaving after Dolokhov, catching him by the
arm already half way down the stairs. He resisted for a moment before turning
to her, lips pressed thinly together, nostrils flaring.
“I’m sorry –” she said – “He doesn’t mean it – you know he doesn’t. We need you
– both of us –”
“Hélène –” he shook his head. She was alarmed to see that he was blinking back
tears, something raw and open in his voice she never normally heard – “No. If
you knew how much I thought about hearing either of you say that – and meaning
it –”
“I domean it.”
“- meaning it not just because you need me to get you out of a mess – I can’t,
I’m sorry – I can’t.I –”
“I know –” she felt herself in terrible danger of crying, tightness in her
throat – “I love you too, Fedya.” He looked at her, positively startled, though
no more than she was to have heard herself say it.
“Anatole –” she began but they were interrupted by the sound of something
smashing in the room above.
 “Go on –” Dolokhov sighed – “Go. Sort him out. Don’t be too angry with him.
Hélène –”he insisted, seeing the dark look in her eyes that suggested she might
ignore that last order – “Look after him.”
She sighed, enormously –
“I always do. I’m sorry Fedya – it had to –”
“Hush. We knew this. You and I, we’ll be alright. I won’t be far. Here –” He
scribbled something down for her on a scrap of paper – “I’ll help you when you
need to get home.”
Her face prickled. She had never been the one to just hide her tears in
someone’s shoulder before, she had always been the shoulder herself. She did it
now, pressing her forehead into the rough fabric of Dolokhov’s greatcoat as he
hugged her hard and tight before letting her go.
She had thought she was going to go back to their rooms and scream at Anatole
but he had looked at her with such big teary eyes, announcing petulantly, lower
lip trembling –
“He doesn’t love me anymore,” that all she could do was sigh deeply, tell him
what an absolute idiot he was and hold him all but in her lap like she had done
a thousand times.
In the end they did what she had known they would have to do eventually, almost
from the start – they made arrangements to go home. Hélène penned a tentative
letter to their father testing for his response, giving him the address
Dolokhov had given her rather than their own, uncertain as to whether or not he
would have just swooped down on them himself or sent people to fetch them home
immediately. He did not do either of these things, but accepted her stated
intention for them to return home at the beginning of November with cordial if
strained enthusiasm. It seemed to Hélène to be a worryingly lenient response;
Anatole, of course, just revelled in the fact that they seemed to have got off
quite lightly with, as he called it their prank.
Strangely, the two weeks left to them before the deadline once they had it are
the weeks in which Hélène is happier – possibly, she thinks than she has been
her whole life. Once resigned and aware of how this will end, and able to speak
of it freely without it being a cloud over their heads – she gives herself up
to the freedom of these numbered weeks.
Dolokhov returns to them. Of course– she remarks archly – smiling at him when
he comes back through their door as though she could not have cared if he came
or went. It is barely a week since he stormed out on them and Anatole, never
one to bear a grudge greets him only with delight at his return, throwing
himself into Dolokhov’s arms almost the second he walks through the door.
“I’m sorry,” he babbles like a child who thinks that all he ever has to do is
say sorry for everything to be forgiven – “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I
didn’t mean it at all”.
Dolokhov shakes his head in a way Hélène recognises from the number of times
she has done it – in that way which implies a sighing and an understanding that
there is nothing else to do with the boy but forgive him. She smiles as they
fold into each other and with a tact and discretion surprising even herself she
gets up quietly and leaves them to it.
“You know –” Dolokhov says later, the three of them half asleep and exhausted,
Hélène curled warmly between her two dear boys, wondering if she will ever be
quite as sublimely happy as this again – “You know this won’t be the last time
don’t you? It’s not as though there won’t always be ways to make this happen,
even back home.”
“Do you think so?” Anatole blinks at him with wide trusting eyes, even though
he has been the one, more than any of them, fucking as though it was the last
chance he would have. Hélène just smiles, wanting it to be true and too sleepy
and satisfied to want to think otherwise.
“Dear ones,” Dolokhov’s lips twitch in half a smile and she thinks, just now,
that it is the best answer she has ever heard.
On one of their last nights, Dolokhov leaves them to go out alone, and they
head across the river and up the citadel for the last time. She tries not to
think about it too much – walking out hand in hand like this. It has become
almost familiar, almost normal in this too short half a year. But of course it
has; it is how they were meant to be, the two of them and Dolokhov living like
this. She wonders if there was any way it could have been forever and supposes
not, not unless they were all of them different people, prepared for more or
other than they were. She supposes it is weakness, drawing them out of their
comfortable shadows and back into the bright lights of home. But she knows she
has to be there, in the centre of that light, even if she cannot be happier
there.
She twists her fingers tighter around his, rests her head on her shoulder as
they walk, aware of awkwardness in walking like this, feeling her hair shift
across her shoulders It seems tonight as though she can feel everything, see
all the details around them more clearly than usual, as though the colours of
the world around her had become more distinct, the outlines of everything
sharper, moonlight on the black leaves in the bushes around them, the silver
thread of the path before them and behind and Anatole – always. But then, he
was always distinct. At the top of her awareness she thinks about how beautiful
they are; a tingling consciousness of it all over her skin that must flow into
his through their fingertips. She has often been unaware what parts of them
belong to who, and likes the feeling. She knows that even back home they will
look this beautiful together even if it will not be quite the same.
They stand for a long time on the top of the hill, silent and curled in close
against the wind, looking out on the city in what they know is a farewell
until, without discussing it, they turn around and start back down the hill.
Not ten paces down Anatole stops, turns, looks at her with something he is
clearly desperate to say clamouring to come out.
“I wish –” he says in an impulsive burst but cannot get beyond it; she
understands of course – there is too much to wish. She reads the confusion of
trying to express so much in his face and shakes her head in pain –
“Don’t” she says, strained, but –
“I wish –” he says again. It hurts her head to hear. She shakes her head while
the terrible words hand around their heads like wasps refusing to leave them.
“If –” he tries again. She understands suddenly how difficult this is – for
Anatole who has never lived on wishes, never wanted anything he could not have
– or at least has not known it – not reallyknown it when he has. To want to be
other than what he is is unutterably foreign to him.
“If I were not myself –” he struggles – “If I was anyone else – anyone at all –
I would get down on my knees right here and ask you to marry me. It would be
the place for it, wouldn’t it? We shouldbe married, like I always said.”
“But if you were someone else –” she says gently – “I would say no.”
“And if I was myself and I asked?”
“You know I would still say no.”
“It’s not fair,”he sticks his lip out stubbornly, like when he was a child, she
sighs, sent to his room without supper. She wants to be impatient, wants to
tell him life’s not fair! For god’s sake – how have you gone so long imagining
that it is?It is almost ridiculous to her, when she has burned under these
injustices, knowing them in her heart for so long, wanting to fight and knowing
she could not. Ridiculous yes, but she cannot help but love him for it.
“No,” she says in the end and only that – “It’s not fair.”
“I likebeing me,” he adds, petulantly – “And I like being you – oh hell –I mean
I like you being you. I don’t want you to not be my sister but –” he frowns,
knowing he is saying it wrong even though she understands him perfectly – “But
sometimes I do. Want that. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” she smiles at how simple he makes it sound – all of the wishes and the
useless agonising that has tramped in complicated lines through her heart and
mind for so long. She smiles with tears in her eyes – “Yes it does.” She leans
up and kisses his cheek; he presses his forehead crookedly against hers;
“I want so much,” he grumbles.
“Yes,” she smiles more happily this time – you wouldn’t be yourself if you
didn’t,she thinks – “Yes, you always do.”
“It’s not bad though, is it?” there is the hint of a question in his voice but
she can hear that it is really not a question in his mind.
“No dearest,” she shakes her head – “No, it’s not bad.”
They walk on together hand in hand and for some reason his smile has returned
and that usual jaunty step, even though nothing has actually been resolved.
Once again they do not speak though the silence is pleasant and does not really
feel like silence. She wonders if he could really ever do anything bad, given
that there could never be any badness sin his intentions. She wonders and she
wishes.
She tries not to but she wishes for so much.
__x__
***** Vasili, November, 1803 *****
 
Vasili, November, 1803
 
He finds himself using what little his daughter gave him repeatedly over the
half year and more that they are gone. Gone travelling,he replies in answer to
all the increasingly arch questions he receives as to his children’s
whereabouts; their sudden disappearance from society. People, to his continual
irritation, like to think of it as suspicious and mysterious, and the fact that
they are not wholly wrong in these assumptions does little to make him feel
better. Worse, it seems that everything that he had feared was painfully
obvious between them really had been quite obvious after all; as the exact
rumours start that he had dreaded most of all – dreaded most of all because the
truth was harder to avoid than the scandalous lie most of the people who spread
it still genuinely thought it to be.
He repeats his daughter’s words to him so many times, embellishing it as needed
with details as to their travels that he does not have, having never heard from
them since. He repeats them to himself most of all, trying to tell himself that
this answer really is all there is, that there is foolishness in it but no
calamitous intent. Sometimes he repeats it to himself in all different tones of
anger, knowing what they mean by it and furious that they would dare. Either
way, he tears the words to shreds over and over again.
The lack of any specifics – any time frame, any clue as to when or if they will
return, niggles him most of all. In the early weeks he finds himself expecting
them home almost every day, as though they had just gone on an excursion to one
of their other estates and will just reappear at any moment. He wishes he could
simply feel their absence with a vague and normal kind of loneliness – just to
miss them like any parent would with their children having finally left the
house. He wonders what that would be like. Sometimes he wonders if he is not a
terrible parent more for not simply allowing them whatever it is that
constitutes happiness no matter what it is and as such when he finally brings
himself to cut them off from any hint of the family finances half a year later
it is with a confusing combination of guilt and hope. The one in doing what he
has no doubt will make them unhappy and the other that this will make them come
home again, although he suspects that too will not particularly please them.
When he receives Helene’s letter in mid-October then, it is with far more of
relief than any other of these potential emotions. She writes guardedly of
course, but at the same time he can almost hear her voice in the words. It
occurs to him that guarded is the only way he has seen her since she was the
smallest child and even then she must have learnt to dissemble at almost the
same rate at which she learnt to talk. Words and lies are similar tools to her;
well, he suspects he knows where she gets that from.
He wonders how to play his response as he calculates every move he makes. She
says nothing of what they have been doing or how they are, simply that they
intend on coming home in early November if it would be both agreeable and
acceptable to yourself, papaand she leaves an address in Hungary that he
suspects, if he can gauge her correctly – he is never sure he can - is not
where they are staying. He wonders, not for the first time, how they planned
all this; who has helped them, how they have lived. Behind it all he wonders,
with infinite whispering dread, whether or not they have somehow married.
He thinks for exactly two days before sitting down to write out his reply. He
suspects, when all is said and done, that in his balancing act between good
father and model citizen, withering disgust and incompetent affection he has,
as usual, been too lenient. But it occurs to him on the whole that they need
not accept whatever answer he gives them and if he can just get them home first
he can settle the matter later. He wonders if he should send Anatole away
again, he wonders if he would go if he did. He cannot imagine either of them
openly arguing with him but he can no longer imagine either of them meekly
accepting his instructions without some back up plan of their own anymore.
He finds himself surprised by the tenderness with which he receives Helene’s
second letter; this feeling of pleasure that after so long with nothing he
should get a second letter from her at all and that one acquiescing to his
acceptance of their return. He is not sure he has manoeuvred as carefully in
conversations with military strategists as he does with his own daughter. He
wonders if this is how all parents feel with their children. He wonders if one
ever stops thinking of them as children.
On the day of their return, he hears them before he sees them; his daughter’s
voice in the hall, clear and laughing, echoing and high –
“Oh my goodness – warmth!”
“I’d almost forgotten what it was like!” Both their voices, nothing changed,
laughing as carelessly as though they really have only been away on the most
innocuous of trips. He hears them whispering as they come through into the
drawing room, and this too is both depressingly and also reassuringly familiar.
He takes a deep breath and stands up to greet them. It is not hard to look
stern; he hopes it is the way his face has settled, and not just into an
expression of anger, or worse, lenience. Perhaps he has misjudged after all
because there is a distant smile that does not shift from Helene’s face and
Anatole has a look of merriment in his eye that is almost insolence.
“Anatole.” He nods at them stiffly – “Helene. It’s good to see you back.” He
stops, awkward. They do not make it easier for him – he suspects that is
intentional – staring back at him, smiles unwavering, looking at him only as
though they are curious to see what he will do next. It is the same curious
look he has seen Anatole as a child give to an exotic animal on those occasions
they have had to see them, interested to see what it will do next. He feels
himself excruciatingly on display. It is not how he had imagined it, and he had
imagined it so many different ways. After a too long silence they exchange a
fraction of a look and he reads the question clear enough in Helene’s eyes
shall we help him?and Anatole, just as barely perceptibly nods.
“It’s good to be home,” she says, eyes clear and focused and quite clearly
lying.
“Can I have my allowance back now?” Anatole is more straightforward though he
asks it cheerfully, without a hint of bitterness, merely as though he has had
it taken away for a few days for some mild misdemeanour. He catches Helene
shooting her brother just the faintest of glares.
“Of course,” he smiles, taking his cues in smiling without meaning it from her.
He supposes he has taught her this for long enough it is now her turn to teach
him his own tricks. He finds himself respecting her cold false courtesy more
than Anatole’s blunt honestly “More than that –” he adds – “I’ve acquisitioned
a house for you near the barracks. After you’re settled you can start moving
in. Soon,” he adds pointedly. Anatole smiles, and for the first time he sees
something of Helene in that smile – something sly and narrow eyed, containing
more understanding than he is used to seeing from his son.
“Really? My own. You’re too kind, papa.”
Vasily reassesses his judgement – he does not like Anatole when he is lying any
more than he does when the boy is being honest. Helene says nothing, only
mirroring her brother’s obsequious smile with nothing whatsoever behind the
eyes. It is all too easy to see how little they have been apart in the months
they have been away, more in sync than ever and consequently unnerving him
more, he supposes, than he should let himself be unnerved. He knows, just
looking at them, that trying to use force to insist on this stopping completely
will do nothing more than drive them away again. It is exhausting, he thinks,
to have to play a role as terrible as the one they are forcing upon him; to
have to destroy all their chances of happiness. But it unthinkable to do
otherwise.
“Yes. Well –” he is conscious of many levels of inadequacy – “No doubt you’ve
had a long journey – you should –”
“Yes, papa” – from Anatole, a “Thank you papa,” from Helene even though he has
not really said anything, but Anatole is gone as though he had actually given
them the leave to go he had only been implying. Helene is almost out the door
too before he calls her back –
“Helene - a moment?”
“Yes papa?” Her eyes wide, her voice clear and crystalline, sharp and bright
and innocent.
“There’s just one thing I have to ask –”
“Yes papa?” exactly the same, not a half note of inflection different from the
first time she said it.
“Did you –” he begins, suddenly not sure he can do this after all – “Just tell
me you didn’t –” please don’t be– but god, now that it is here he cannot say
the word, just looks down pointedly at her hands still clasped neatly in front
of her and the ring on her finger. She follows his gaze and the hand under
scrutiny clenches into a little tight fist. She twists at the ring, pulling it
off resignedly to hold it in that fist. For the first time she looks guilty –
or if not quite guilty then caught out; like a card player who has shown their
hand too soon.
“Oh,” she says, her expression flickering briefly then settling again as she
looks up at him again, shrugging one shoulder – “No. No not really.” She looks
down again.
“Go on.” He sits down at his desk heavily, waving her out, noticing that she
leaves this time as fast as she can without running before he can ask her
anything else. He wishes he knew what not reallymeans, wishes he could talk to
her. Wishes he knew what he wanted – if it is different children or for himself
to be a different father. God,he thinks – it starts again then, this dance .He
thought he had forgotten the steps. He is not happy to find himself falling
into step so easily once more.
__x__
***** Dolokhov, November 1805 *****
Dolokhov, November 1805
 
Once again,he thinks; once again we all fall together. Whatever anyone does to
the contrary, however hard the world tries its hand against us. We fall where
we were meant to fall.And is this it, he wonders- between these two but never
separating them? Hélène curled against his back with her nose in the back of
his neck and Anatole, my Anatolehe thinks, with a sudden wave of half-drunk
possessiveness – here, where he should be, inside the curve of his arm. He
suspects he may need to be there for him more than ever in the weeks to come.
God, can’t I love too much? Does it never end?It hurts his head to feel so hard
and to think about it like this, he must have drank a ridiculous amount for it
to have touched him like this tonight. Another wild, beautiful night of
Anatole’s devising and his arrangement, Hélène creeping in in the early hours
of morning before they have quite gone to bed, picking their way through the
drunken scenery of guests scattered around the house like so much party debris.
They have almost, he realises, fallen into a routine over these last two years.
Almost, he thinks; for what’s a routine? A way of life? Routines are like
regimes, they rise and fall, the pattern of an individual life no more constant
than the pattern of a nation. They have had ways of being before, in Budapest,
in the months before, in the army. Everything before the army seems like a far
distant past, not worth the contemplation – certainly not just now. Is that how
he has come to see it, he wonders – everything divided into life before and
after Anatole? Is it that bad?
And after all is he wrong in his wider speculation? Why does it always catch
him like this? After hours, when the others are asleep. He always falls asleep
last and wakes first, their lazy lifestyle never quite suiting him as much as
part of him would like it to suit him. Well, it is true for him, like
everything is true only to the one who thinks it. He supposes that for many
people, their way of life never changes; there is no upheaval that really
routes them, certainly in any long term, from the general concerns of daily
life and the way of that life itself. One is not encouraged to rise above their
station. He has never been sure what he likes less – the common herd who never
try or the people at the top who try to keep them in place.
He likes the routine they live in now as much as anything- more than a lot of
things. Likes it and respects that this too will not last. He finds he enjoys
impermanence, almost as much as it depresses Hélène. She never says it does but
he knows. He knows how she struggles not to worry about what will be; hurting
herself with her own nonchalance, a thing she forces upon herself so well half
the time she really does not care at all. If their roles had been reversed – if
he had been born to their privileges, he imagines he would have ended up more
like her than like Anatole. At the same time she frustrates him; she knows she
is a commodity in the eyes of her family and of society and rather than fight
it, she works with it. Works with it so well society is almost more her tool
than she is it. He is still not sure; he thinks he might have fought it.
He remembers arguing with her some months ago now. She had been angry, not for
the first time, after her father had tried to press her about marriage. She had
turned up at the house – Anatole’s house - though he spent so much time here it
was starting to feel like home – railing about it for the umpteenth time.
Anatole had refused to listen – he always did when the subject came up, and
once again she had got all the more irritated by the ease with which he brushed
it off as he brushed off anything he did not like and did not want to think
about. He had tried to stay out of it at first but, inevitably they had started
screaming at each other, forgetting that he was even there – he half understood
– nobody could fight like siblings could fight, and most did not have the extra
layers of relationship that they did. It had ended as it almost always ended in
Anatole pacing, Hélène’s face taking on that look of waxy implacability that
they both liked least in her as he raged, flailed and eventually sighed –
“Can we just nottalk about this?”
“You always say that,” she came back for the millionth time – “Every time. Do
you think I’d be so angry to begin with if we could actually just notas you so
moronically put it?”
“I did not!”
“Yes you did. You always do. You’re infuriating –” the worst thing was how she
said it so calmly.
“You’reinfuriating.” Anatole did notsay it calmly.
“Do you know I live in constant hope that one day you’ll actually grow up?”
“Shut up shut up! I don’t wantto grow up if I have to listen to stuff like
this!”
“One day you’ll have to listen! Or you’ll be standing like a plank at my
wedding wondering what the hell just hit you!”
“I don’t –” Anatole’s face was blotchy and lived, his hand trembling around the
stem of a wine glass, glaring at her as though he would like to strangle her.
“You’d think I could at least get to be the one who can be upset about it since
I’m the one who has to sleep with some imbecile.”
“Just don’t!”Anatole roared it this time, hurled his glass into the fireplace
and stormed out of the room.
“He has a point, you know,” Dolokhov said, quietly into the silence that
followed, aware that he should probably not.
“Oh don’t you bloody start,” she groaned, closing her eyes and sighing heavily,
mechanically pouring a glass of wine from the bottle Anatole had mercifully
left on the table.
“You do this every few days,” he said patiently, supposing he might as well
continue now that he had started – “It always goes the same way. Have you ever
considered he might have a point?”
“Oh you always stand up for him – you –”
Dolokhov raised his hands in a mock surrender that was not entirely a mock.
“I’m not taking sides. But did you ever just say no to your father?”
“I do. Just about every day. How do you think I got to this age and I’m still
not married? People talk, you know.”
“And that’s more important to you than being happy, is it?”
“You don’t understand, you’re not –” she paused, frowned, made a slight noise
of disgust at herself and finished nonetheless – “You’re not a woman.”
“You know, you could –” he stared, stopped, realised what he was about to say
and almost laughed.
“What?” she looked at him, curious.
“You could marry me.”
“Well –” she laughed – “That has to be the least romantic proposal I ever had.
Thank you.”
“It was a thought. Better than another “just don’t” surely?”
This time they both laughed, though it was a strange kind of laugh undercut
with uneasiness and a guilty regret he knew neither of them would admit to. She
shook her head –
“I couldn’t marry you any more than I could marry Anatole,” she sighed, and
this time she did not hide the regret in her face. He watched her lips pull,
then her shoulders heave and that bright social smile creep wryly back to her
lips – “But it was nice of you to ask. You should probably go and see how he
is.”
“Youshould probably go see how he is.”
“No I don’t want to. You go.”
“You two –” he slouched back hard in his chair staring at the ceiling as though
for inspiration, taking a deep breath and getting up – “I’m going.”
He put his hand on her shoulder gently as he passed by her chair and she leaned
her face into it with a sweet, almost painful familiarity.
“He’ll get there, you know,” he said. She did not look at him, eyes shifting
off as to the side as she replied dully;
“No. He won’t.”
And she was right. He had known it even when he was telling her the consoling
lie. Anatole was not going to accept a truth so against his hopes until, as she
had said, her wedding day. He found himself stuck, as usual, between feeling
both of their different frustrations about it. At the same time he didimagine
life with himself married to Helene, Sometimes it was a beautiful dream, the
three of them living together as they sometimes pretended to do now – but more
often the practicalities came first. He knew neither of them was prepared to be
cut off from the wealth and status they were used to and while he found himself
sometimes disgusted by this he knew that he for one was not prepared to work to
support them. They all had lengths to which they would not go for each other,
but it surprised him to realise that this did not make anybody’s feelings the
weaker.
There is a fine line, he reflects, between innocence and ignorance, and Anatole
balances on that line in perpetual motion. It is both infuriating and adorable.
He wonders why it isadorable, he does not think it would be in somebody he did
not love; he wonders every day how he came to love someone so infuriating and
how it can not only have stayed this way but deepened to the point where he
knows he cannot extract either of them from his heart without bleeding
internally. He does what he does from his vantage point, which is also a
disadvantage – finding himself simultaneously within and without the sphere of
their lives – he goes along with it. At least for now. Anatole refuses to fear
the future and so he does it for both of them.
Since settling in this house Anatole has stubbornly thrown himself into the
process of ignoring potential problems with more effort and enthusiasm than he
would have had to put into real work. Dolokhov finds himself almost permanently
impressed and exasperated and at the same time willing to be complicit in this
method of madness since the process is so enjoyable. The process – he is not
sure why he ever did not expect it would be – is one of drink and debauchery,
and they have gathered a close circle of people who will – perhaps erroneously
– call themselves friends; the better to undertake this lifestyle with all
imaginable energy and vigour. He is not sure whether to be amused or to despair
at the speed with which they gather, almost at the same speed that they gather
these friends, a reputation as utter reprobates, the ringleaders of
Petersburg’s most dissolute social circle.
It occurs to Dolokhov, with the greatest amusement, that there are two great
misnomers at the heart of everyone’s assumptions regarding this “new” society
they have formed. His own part in it is the first one. What few people seem to
realise is that for all the drink he rarely gets drunk and he finds this puts
him in a remarkably advantageous position. Being the only person sober in a
room full of inebriated rich boys means that he can both play them very
successfully for their money – the amount they will throw away on bets and
games that he can almost always win makes his head spin – and for their
respect. At the same time there is always a need for the person at the party
who can apparently throw off their own drunkenness at a moment’s notice enough
to help a fellow who was failing. This was all the easier when the drunkenness
was never there to begin with. Being that person gains him all the more respect
and with the respect all the more dares and bets.
The second thing nobody quite grasps in the whole equation is Anatole. They
whisper about him in polite society with more than a little mingled reproach
and awe. The reputation he has gained as a notorious womanizer and all round
unprincipled bounder is not entirely unfounded. Dolokhov alone has an idea of
how much money he spends on women and wine. What people do not realise is that
whilst the two of them certainly get through a great deal of the wine, the
women are there more for the benefit of their guests. Not that they never take
advantage, certainly; but Anatole is far more loyal to him and to Hélène than
he has any wish for the rest of the world to know.
Hélène, to his surprise, does not seem to care either way. She laughs at them
for the scandal they cause, the reputations they earn and while she is scathing
about Anatole’s whores never makes any serious move to stop him. It is all as
much a game to her as it is to make her own way through the maze of society. It
is a maze through which she leads half of the rest of the world around her,
shining a candle down its numerous twists and pathways.
The worst thing Dolokhov has noticed in the last two years is the way they have
started to close off, both of them, in sometimes different, sometimes similar
ways. It is not real, he knows that, internally nothing has changed; but they
have both become more guarded, more cautious in expressing what used to come
out so freely. Actually, if he let it be, it would be heart breaking, but they
barely ever say I love you anymore and it used to drop from them both so
easily. He understands why, knows that to maintain an illusion of happiness, a
trick they both play on themselves as much as on the rest of the world, it is
impossible to admit to all that cannot be. When they do say it now it is quiet,
or whispered, or expressed when they speak to him and not to each other. They
say it as though it is not true, ironically or as though it is a game or
sometimes, when it simply cannot be repressed at the most intimate of moments
and they pretend to have not said it, not to have heard and make fun of it the
day after. Incongruously perhaps they have at the same time developed new terms
of endearment that drop where the missing three words no longer fall, dearest,
darling, beloved– they all fall like flowers in place of any more painful
confession and he sees them smile on receipt of these flowers and it hurts.
Anatole, out of all of them, changes the least. He has never known anyone with
such a capacity for joy, such an intense dedication to enjoying life and
everything in it. He looksat everything, Dolokhov has always noticed this, and
more than just looking he seems to genuinely see. He goes out alone sometimes,
riding in the morning or walking in the evening and more often than not brings
back something pretty that has caught his eye like a magpie to its nest,
interesting feathers, pretty stones, flowers for Hélène that he suspects she
keeps pressed somewhere though she pretends to roll her eyes at these curious
childish offerings. He does not tell Anatole either, about the stone he keeps
in a coat pocket or the feather that he has used now and then as a bookmark.
“You should have seen him when he was small,” Hélène says one morning, over
breakfast, Anatole having told them with ridiculous but infectious enthusiasm
how shiny the water had looked that morning under the bridge. How it had shone
gold in the morning light like a smooth stone and he had wanted to bring a
slice of it home.
“He had to pick up everything.It was never enough that something just be
pretty, was it dear – he had to have it. Even if it was alive.”
“Don’t you dare –” Anatole groans, sinking into his chair laughing and reaching
for the tea.
“It was a beeAnatole,” she grins, winking at Dolokhov. “I found him sat on the
grass with a great fat bumblebee in his hand. He was only three. He cried and
cried when it stung him, not because it hurt but because the bee died.”
“It was soft,”Anatole whines and Dolokhov suspects they have annoyed one
another with this story for years – “It looked soft and I just wanted to touch
–”
“Story of your life.”   
“I didn’t knowit would die,” he pouts.
“He was so upset we had to have a little funeral for it and everything,” Hélène
continues remorselessly, smiling. “We buried it in a match box, I think. I told
him about how hives work and how the bee had died protecting what it loved.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Anatole mutters happily.
“He said he wanted to be a bee and I said I’d be his queen, remember?”
Anatole glares at her, smirking happily.
“So what’s Dolokhov?”
“You can be a drone,” she has on that playful half smirk he loves most about
her.
It was one of the good mornings. There were, he reflected, quite a lot of them.
And now he lies where he often feels like he best belongs, nestled between
their two heartbeats, wondering if he was the one cushioning their lives,
making them easier to live or if it was the other way around. He thinks about
the evening they have spent; one of more than usual intensity and near violent
need. I just don’t want anything to change,Anatole had said, one of the last
things before he fell asleep, Hélène not replying, pretending she was already
asleep herself. Dolokhov wonders how Anatole can fail to realise how many times
“things” have already changed in his life. He seems to imagine things have
always been the way they are now and always will be, as though the way they are
nowis how things have always been. Hélène has told him more than once that he
has always been like this. He was, as a child, she says, unaware of the
consequences of growing up and Dolokhov suspects he is still wondering what it
will be like and when it will happen.
This state of being has not been the worst and they have all become used to it
and find ways in which to enjoy it, but yes, he supposes change is due again.
It is inevitable. He finds himself selfishly almost relieved at Hélène’s timing
which means that he does not have to drop his own news on them first and be the
first one to break this routine by telling them of his forthcoming removal to
Austria with the army. They will have to find a new new way of life; he has
known and accepted it anyway, ever since Hélène dropped on them the news of her
engagement to Pierre Bezukhov.
__x__
So quick note – I have this head canon about Anatole often picking flowers for
Hélène that’s entirely based on the 2007 tv adaptation and not either of the
sources I’ve actually tagged this fic under. I just don’t want to confuse
issues of characterisation further by adding a tag for that version too, but
yeah, that’s where I got that from.
 
***** Anatole, December 1805 *****
 
Anatole, December 1805
 
“Father, do I have to?”
The prince looks at his son and it seems to Anatole that his eyes are
remorseless, sharp, flinty twists of ice, almost as though he enjoys what he
has to know he is doing.
“Yes,” Vasily nods, implacable – “Of course. It’s your sister’s wedding. Of
course you have to be there.”
The handsome lips twist and pout, curling up in every twitch and action all at
once. It is not as though he really thought that he could get away with it, but
such considerations have not seriously stopped him from trying before.
It was somewhat of a rhetorical question anyway at this stage; standing in
front of the mirror and adjusting a cravat. His father has already attempted to
shame him out of his choice of attire (“It’s a wedding boy, not a funeral!”)
but he is damned if he is going to make any more of a concession to this
utterly awful day than he has already done. If giving up on a lifelong dream of
perfect happiness can be considered a concession. He feels himself taking a
pinch of bitter pride in being the only person in black amongst a sea of polite
agreeable greys and creams. Besides it seems to Anatole as though funereal is
all too appropriate to his feelings just at the moment. He is not sure he has
ever woken up on a morning where everything felt quite so wrong as today. He is
not sure he has ever felt so awful in his life, and wishes he could be
melodramatic directly towards someone about it. But Helene is obviously busy
and Dolokhov is in Moscow. He wishes he was here, he would tell him how better
to behave or to feel. He might not listen; but Fedya would tell him all the
same and he feels just now as though that could help. He hates him for not
being there but he hates Helene more. He wants to kill his father and Pierre.
He has always risen above sadness before. He has kept himself happy in the same
way that other men might keep themselves busy. But this is different. In spite
of everything he has never really believed – not in his heart – that this would
really happen. Nothing; not the engagement, not Helene’s dull acceptance or her
screaming at him in frustration to try to make him understand, has really
settled this inevitability in his mind as something that could really happen.
Even now he cannot picture it – this wedding – the ceremony mundanely and
flawlessly taking place – the staid and tiresome celebrations and everything
that has to follow. He does not wantto picture it. He amuses himself instead
picturing some last minute intervention – being the one to step forward with
objections to the wedding proceeding, announcing his prior claim on her to the
world. It is so ridiculous to him that this should be a problem that he cannot
imagine it reallyleading him into trouble. He can hear himself now, his voice
ringing through the church, every word that makes so much more sense than the
idiot things the priest will be saying, her hand beside Pierre’s. She’s mine,he
hears it already, in advance – I love her –his chest tightens. The reality
makes him sick. It is so confusing it gives him a headache – how simple and
right this claim feels compared to the confounding knowledge that for some
reason he cannot make it.
He makes it more romantic, more elaborate; imagines a daring rescue – shooting
the priest, killing Pierre, galloping up the aisle and stealing her away,
riding off in a blaze of glory. He has said these things to her already, and
she always simply sighs at him and ruins it with her inevitable question and
then what? Every time. It annoys him beyond measure, but he grudgingly accepts
the truth of it at least enough not to try. Practically the question is valid
and he knows it; they have already tried just running away, it does not sustain
indefinitely.
It seems monstrously unfair just now that life, as everyone always tiresomely
tells him, is not a fairy tale. Helene told him fairy tales when they were
little, but she had always changed them, leaving out the bit where the princess
married some king or other, utterly unrelated to her. In her stories the sister
always rescued her little brother – from his enchantment, from being eaten by
witches, when he drank the water from the wrong well even though she told him
not to – it occurs to him that these stories always had the boy do something
wrong and his sister rush to his rescue. It doesn’t matter, he liked them that
way, he knew what she was implying and felt secure in the knowledge that she
would always rescue him. But then she stopped, she did not go on to the parts
of those stories where the girl found somebody else, just left it with the
brother and sister together in their happy ever after with no one else. It had
been satisfying, wassatisfying – only he had heard since that this was not the
way the stories reallyended. He remembers this satisfaction, nodding with it in
approval, curled up against her when she told him these stories and everything
felt so right.
And today everything is so wrong. He feels weighted down and drifting all at
once, knowing how it really has to go and going through the motions of behaving
despite every impulse to the contrary. He would like to start drinking already.
But this comes next – he closes his eyes – hopes it will go away – it does not
go away. Next they meet with Helene to accompany her to church. For the
briefest moment when he sees her she is an angel to him in white – sunshine on
snow – he remembers Dolokhov described her like that to him once and he thinks
of it now – just for a moment he smiles because he has been dreaming about this
for so long. But he can only have seconds of this before he remembers that she
is not for him, something breaks silently in his chest. She ignores him when
they come in, looks around him as though he is not there, smiling at their
father and dazzling them, so silver and white. He has never turned away from
something he found beautiful ever before, but he cannot look at her now. He
stares sullenly off to one side until the prince hisses at him and it occurs to
him that something is expected of him. She is looking at him now, but she is
not looking at him, her eyes are as closed as he has ever seen them and her
smile shines like broken ice. She can make the corners of her mouth turn up,
even force a sparkle into her eyes but he knows her; he has never seen her more
unhappy. He wishes they could have talked properly in these last few days
without freezing each other out or screaming but they have not.
“Anatole, congratulate your sister.” Vasily sounds tersely irritated; no doubt,
Anatole supposes, at having to prompt him every step of the way. He cares
nothing for his father’s irritation, it isnothing. If he can make this
acceptably more difficult for the bastard then he will. He grits his teeth,
embraces his sister all but at arm’s length, she is stiff and absent in his
arms and somebody’s heart is breaking, he can all but hear them crack together.
“You look beautiful,” he says, stiffly; his face feels tight. She looks down.
“Thank you” she says. He balls his fists, manages not to cry.
“Yes, well,” is all their father can say and for the first time he looks away,
almost guiltily. Just for a moment, with his back turned Anatole sees a flash
of desperation leaping in his sister’s eyes, bright and hurting like a cut, a
help meshe cannot say and is not permitted to mean.
“Shall we go?” she says and yes, if it must be done it should be done quickly.
He gives her his arm, stops pretending, and something dies.
He stares at the floor for most of the ceremony and for the first time in
weeks, now that he is actually here, he cannot bring himself to imagine the
fantasies of escape that have sustained him so far. He cannot watch either, or
focus, cannot think at all. He wonders if this is what she has been doing for
years; cutting herself off, numbing her brain into nothingness. As soon as they
reach the reception and he can, he throws himself towards the champagne and
starts drinking fast, wishing it was stronger.
He closes his eyes to everything, the speeches, the noise, the brightness, all
that clinking of glasses and the birdsong of senseless chatter. He has never
felt so far from himself, never gone so against his own nature as to shut out
sensation. He tries to remember all the sensible logical things they have
discussed before now, all the ways they have tried to make this bearable; how
nothing will really change, how little dominance Pierre is capable of
asserting, how easily she will still be able to come and go just as when she
was living in her father’s house, how this marriage, this stranger in their
lives has no bearing on her feelings, they never change.
Never change.They become the words that clang around his head; he seems to find
them at the bottom of every glass. He can see his sister laughing in memory,
her hand against his face, amused with the child he always is – darling, never
change. Dolokhov too, smiling at him in the light of an early morning with
fond, narrow-eyed appraisal, shaking his head tolerantly at something
ridiculous Anatole has said. You’re an idiot Anatole – never change.All of
their love, all their kisses and fondness and wishes for him – it should be
enough to shield him from everything; he knows they want to protect him from
the world, knows how loved he is, how treasured. Just now, it is not enough.
Just now he cannot be the child he always is. It is not because he doubts even
that they can make another way of being it is simply this – the destruction of
a dream. He never really knew it was foolish up until now, however often she
tried to tell him so. A part of him had always known they would marry and be
together forever. He hates her for knowing otherwise.
When the bubbles start clouding his brain he loses focus on everything except
for her. It is not surprising, he has always held her focus even after losing
his own – but where it used to be a comfort just now it does nothing but sting.
Bright and white, she cuts a tear in his perception, sharp against the blurry
softness around him. He smashes a glass he did not mean to smash, says
something over-loud, touching on just what he thinks of Pierre just now. His
hand tightens around another glass, he thinks about crushing this one inwards,
grinding glass between his fingers. He cannot hear the people around him until
–
“Anatole.”
It sounds far away. He smiles vaguely, realising with pleasure that he has
managed to get more drunk on champagne than he thought he could.
“Anatole!”
Helene. She is closer to him than he realised; suddenly beside him and he
reaches to touch her, not registering the look on her face. She steps away,
grabs him by the arm, not gently, though she holds back for appearances sake,
pinching him surreptitiously on the underarm, her smile fixed beneath her
fuming eyes. He lets her lead him, not knowing where until he registers that
they are somewhere quiet, a room off from the main event. Somewhere, to his
relief, where other people are not. His relief, however is short lived.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hisses.
“What? nothing – drinking – congrat’lations!” he beams at her emptily.
“I can seethat,” she has dropped the smile, and it suddenly seems to him she is
all teeth, teeth she keeps together when she talks, lips thin and eyes stony.
“I will nothave you make a scene at my wedding,” she goes on, remorseless, he
cannot imagine why she is hitting him with her words so hard – “This is hard
enough without my having to babysit you. Do you even know how this looks?”
He has no idea what her last question pertains to, knows only that her tone and
choice of words are making him angry.
“Looks –”he sneers – “How things look. That’s all you ever care about isn’t it?
Being proper, being pretty, looking good. Well you’re not and you don’t and I
hate it, so there.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Yes I am, I am sodrunk. How do you think I can get through the happiest day of
your life otherwise, eh?”
She slaps him.
“You know damn well I – this is not –” she makes an inarticulate sound of
irritation and anger – “How dare you – you – you think you’re the only one for
whom things are ever difficult. You never even try,do you?Did you ever for once
in your life think to imagine how anyone else is feeling?”
“No.”
“It was a rhetorical fucking question!” She snaps – “And I knowyou don’t.
You’re a selfish stupid boy and I don’t know why I –”
She stops, hands on her hips, looks up at the ceiling, he can see her
scrunching her face up, all the veins tense in her neck. He knows she is trying
not to cry and does not care.
“You don’t know why you love me? That what you were going to say? Then you knew
you can’t because you don’t. Do you. You wouldn’t be doing this if you did. For
all I know you love Pierre –”
“Fuckyou –” she looks like she would like to slap him again, he watches her
with the wary close eye of the drunk, but ready to move fast – “I feel
nothingfor Pierre, and I’ll continue to feel nothing even when I fuckthe
idiot.”
He is not sure he has heard her say the word fuckso many times in one minute;
if he could stand to even think about what she has just said it might have
amused him. He opens his mouth –
“No!” she jumps in – “No, you don’t want to think about that! You think I do?
You think I want this - I don’t –”
“You don’t love me!” he is shouting now, glad that she is mortified by how loud
his voice is growing – “You just lie to me like to everyone else. Well I don’t
love you either. I hate you!”
“I hate you! I hated you since you were born! Get out! Go on - go – you ruin
everything!”
“I will! I didn’t want to be here anyway!” he stares at her, breathing heavily,
wanting to shout more, wanting to heap invective after invective on her head,
wanting to tear through the main room destroying everything. What self-
preservation he can find reels him in hard enough that instead he just stops,
swallow hard, spits out a final blow, filled with bile –
“Enjoy your wedding night,” and he turns sharply and walks out without looking
at her.
He hears her call his name just once but he keeps on walking, out of the
building, away from it all, out into the street without stopping to pick up his
coat. He walks fast, all but running, fuelled on enough anger and alcohol to
take him more than half way down the street before he realises how cold it is,
the middle of winter and the snow falling. He can see his breath on the air,
laced with light flecks of snowfall. He is still so angry, he half expects the
steam to come out of him red and black, fuming in the cold night air. The cold
is disgustingly sobering. It occurs to him, with what seems like logic, that
there is simply no room for them both to be in the same city as long as it is
her wedding night. He cannot keep thinking about Pierre touching her but he
cannot stop thinking about it. He heads for home and cannot stay there either,
quiet and peace do not suit him and there are too many of her things there
trying to tell him that nothing has changed. He cannot do this, he was not born
for suffering, so much turbulence in the soul – he wants only to be held and
comforted until the bad feelings go away. There is only one person who can help
him just now and he is in Moscow. So he sends word to Balaga and leaves that
night for Moscow.
__x__
I don't think there's anything in book canon to say if Anatole was in a mood or
even present at Helene’s wedding but both 2007 and 2016 versions have him there
looking salty as all hell so I’m going with that!
(also yeah this took me forever, work is mega busy at the moment. )
***** Dolokhov January 1806 *****
 
 
Dolokhov January 1806
 
“Darling,” she smiles radiantly, as soon as they have a chance to be alone
together, kissing him on the cheek. “It’s so good to see you again. I missed
you –” he closes his eyes, sighs heavily, knowing exactly what is coming next,
knowing she cannot even take a breath between apparently missing him before she
has to ask – “How’s Anatole?”
How’s Anatole.Dolokhov looks at the ground. It is too hard to meet Helene’s
glassy smile, the forced brightness in her eyes. Something has changed in her
since the wedding; he cannot quite articulate it, just knows that it is heart
breaking to see. She is, if anything, brighter and more polished than before,
but perhaps it is exactly that which lets him know how hard something is
hurting her inside.
“I haven’t seen him since the wedding,” she adds. She says it casually,
conversationally, but then she stops being able to meet his gaze and looks down
at the ground herself.
Where would he start if he were to tell her the truth? Would he tell her that
he knows what happened at the wedding and that she has every right to feel bad.
She would deny that she felt bad anyway. How far back would she like to hear
and how much detail could she bear?
He thinks about that evening in Moscow just over a month ago now, a week before
Christmas and only days after the wedding. He was at home with his family,
having gone straight to them on being given leave from the army. It was a good
time, being with them and himself recently honoured after Austerlitz. For once
he could feel almost easy among them, even his mother’s pride in him was
starting to reach excruciating levels and his sister, in response to her own
pride in him was responding only by giving him as much tender grief about
everything she could think of as possible. They were sat in the front room
laughing and talking. Mostly he talked and they listened, the firelight threw a
glow in Galina’s hair that made him think, not for the first time, how
beautiful she was, and his mother too, in the warm light, smiled like a sunbeam
and his heart smiled with the same light. It was a good moment and he was
happy.
And then a knock on the door, frantic and loud, making them jump. He frowned,
got up slowly, wondering who it could be, peering out into the dark and the
cold suspiciously. It was Anatole. He looked as though he had washed up onto
their doorstep like a stray dog, bundled in furs, face pale and eyes dark,
looking as though he not slept in days and had spent all of those days at the
mercy of the elements. He looked like he had been crying on and off for a long
time, the cold air etching silvery streaks down his face. Dolokhov frowned. He
was not used to being so surprised. He had given Anatole this address a long
time ago, yes, but had not for one moment imagined he would ever show up here.
It was cold, he bundled Anatole through the door first and then posed the
question –
“What the devil are you doing here?”
“I –” Anatole’s eyes were a little wild, darting everywhere, large and lost.
For a moment Dolokhov almost though he was going to begin by saying sorry – “I
didn’t have anywhere else to go”.
Dolokhov opened his mouth to begin suggesting the number of places Anatole
could have had to go, but trying to put himself into the other man’s head for a
moment, realised that if this was the conclusion Anatole had come to it was the
only truth to which he would listen. He sighed.
“Well come through to the fire, let’s get you warm”.
He wished he had either had more preparation for this or never had to deal with
it at all. The idea of ever introducing either Anatole or his sister to his
family was a nightmare that had more than once kept him up at night. To his
surprise, the fears turned out to be utterly unfounded. He introduced him to
his mother and sister awkwardly but between the three of them was an utter lack
of the responding awkwardness he had expected. His mother kissed Anatole on the
cheek and to Dolokhov’s horror he could not help but think that she was eyeing
him a little too approvingly. Anatole, either out of the stress of the last few
days or a social tact Dolokhov had not known he had, was humble and sweet to
his mother, apologising for his sudden appearance and thanking her for the
hospitality. She laughed at this, saying she was not sure she had shown him any
yet, and headed out to the kitchen to make tea, pulling her son along with him.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her quietly when they were alone.
“Why are you sorry? If your friend needs somewhere to be he’s welcome. You
never told me he was so –”
She grinned, a surprisingly wicked glint in her eye. Dolokhov closed his eyes.
“Mother, no!”
“I hope he doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor. I’ll pile the spare blankets in
your room, shall I?”
“Thank you,” he was starting to wish the floor would just eat him – “The – er –
floor will be fine.”
He was not sure if it made things better or worse that when they got back into
the front room Anatole and Galina were talking smilingly as though they had
been friends for years. Anatole was making her laugh and Galina had a blush in
her cheeks Dolokhov had never seen before. He drank down tea like he usually
drank down wine. He could not believe how easily they got through the evening,
Anatole falling quickly back into smiles on their account and the rest of them
infected by his good humour in turn.
“Fedya, he’s lovely,”his sister whispered to him in the brief moment she got
before they all headed upstairs – “If he wasn’t yours, I’d –” she blushed hard
and put a hand to her mouth. Dolokhov groaned softly, amused. When he got up to
his room Anatole was taking all the soft things from the floor and adding them
to the bed.
“It’s not a double,” Dolokhov warned, closing the door behind him.
“We’ll manage. Didn’t we always back in the regiment?”
“If you call you hogging all the covers managing.”
“But I was clinging to a corner of the bed to avoid you hogging all of the
mattress while I was doing it. Your family are so lovely. Why didn’t you tell
me?”
“Maybe I was afraid you’d try and run off with my sister.”
“Oh. I don’t think she’d mind.” Dolokhov shakes his head –
“Yes, well done, I think they’re both half in love with you. I should have
guessed.”
“It must run in the family. Loving me.”
Dolokhov shook his head, smiling, remarkably happy with having Anatole here now
that he had adjusted to the idea. Anatole took that smile as an offering of
open arms and flung himself against him. Dolokhov in return found himself
holding him crushingly tight.
“Alright,”  he breathed, when he felt like the boy had had enough crushing –
“What happened?” Anatole, nuzzling himself under Dolokhov’s chin like a kitten,
had evidently nothad enough hugs.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled.
“Yes you do,” Anatole always wanted to talk about whatever feelings he was
having, even when he said otherwise.
“Well,” Anatole pouted – “Let’s lie down and I can tell you comfortably.”
Dolokhov sighed for the hundredth time this evening, very aware that he was
going to be used as a pillow. He was. Anatole took almost twenty minutes
arranging himself, the bed and Dolokhov until he was perfectly comfortable, the
both of them half-dressed and, as Dolokhov had suspected, Anatole’s head
resting on his chest as though he was a pillow.
“Are you there yet? Come on. What brings you here.”
“Balaga,” Anatole answered facetiously – “Balaga brought me here, we travelled
almost four days hardly stopping. I wanted to see you. I –” he bit his lip.
Dolokhov stroked his arm, kissed the top of his head – “I didn’t want to be
alone.”
“After the wedding?” he said it gently, having guessed this bit.
“I –” he felt Anatole’s whole body heave with a sigh – “I may have behaved
badly. She’s mad with me. She just wants to be with Pierre.”He pouted, Dolokhov
could feel it.
“And she told you that did she?”
“No – not as –”
“And I suppose youtold herthat.”
“She slapped me.”
Dolokhov restrained himself from saying that he was not surprised.
“You knew this day had to come.”
Anatole shook his head, started to cry. Dolokhov patted him the shoulder. He
had expected this, had been waiting for it almost.
He thinks about it now, half looking at Helene, wondering how to answer her
question. He cannot. He cannot say Anatole’s a mess, you should have seen him
cry on me.It reminds him of the first years they spent together, the months
after that first meeting where they had fought over a bed they then learned to
share, curled up tight together with him thinking this could be perfect, this
could be happiness if it were not for Anatole always having her to cry over. He
wants to hate her now like he had wanted to hate her then. He cannot hate her,
any more than he could hate his family.
“I didn’t,” Anatole had said when he stopped crying enough to speak, blowing
his nose on an edge of a blanket, Dolokhov groaning at him –
“You know we have to sleep in that.” Anatole, chuckling like a naughty child,
cheering up just a little.
“I didn’t know. I never knew, not really. Shedid. But I always thought – I
always just thought there would be a way we could –”
“Marry?”
“I know.I know how stupid it is. But everything else has always been the way I
want it and I want this – wanted it -” he makes the amendment bitterly – “So
much I thought it had to come right. Like everything else. But now she’s
married and it’s not to me. And I can’t hope that anymore and I don’t likeit. I
don’t like it at all. She’s mine,she –”
His forehead crumpled and he looked confused. Dolokhov kissed the frown lines
away and Anatole smiled as though he was used to having someone do that for
him.
“She isyours. You know that really. She could never be anyone else’s. Except
sometimes mine,” he had to add. Anatole grinned.
“That’s alright. That’s different. I just – I wish it could just be the three
of us, forever. Even if there were no other people in the world and it was
justus. I’d like that. I don’t see the need for all these – other people.”
“Articulate as always, dearest.” Anatole smiled up at him and kissed him on the
lips, playful at first, right up until it wasn’t.
Later, much later in the end, on the verge of sleep, Anatole mumbled a
comfortable -
“I love you Fedya,” into the pillow and said nothing more about Helene.
Dolokhov wished it did not have to have taken Anatole being so sad to give him
something this precious.
He cannot tell Helene any of this. Cannot tell her how something in Anatole
died with her marriage, something that can never be resurrected, cannot tell
her how much he loves the boy and how much comfort this love has brought
Anatole in these last few weeks. He cannot tell her what he found when they got
back to Anatole’s house two days ago. How Anatole had come home that night
drunk from the wedding and viciously, angrily and upsettingly methodically torn
everything he could get his hands on to shreds. The place had looked as though
an explosion had rocked through it, furniture and glass smashed everywhere,
doors hanging broken and curtains dragged down. He cannot tell her that any
more than he can tell her he understands her hurt as well, that he is here now
as much because Anatole liked the idea of him being close to her as because
Pierre made the offer in the first place.
He looks at her finally, over a scattered confusion of memory and indecision
and simply replies –
“He’s fine.”
__x__
 
 
***** Helene, 1807 *****
Helene, 1807.
 
 “It’s done then,” Dolokhov announces, matter of factly. “The duel is on”.
“You did it?” she smiles, wide eyed, not really disbelieving, more delighted.
“Hedid it. I merely – provoked.”
“Well, you’re very provocative. What did you do?”
He has her laughing when he tells her about it, in the highest amusement she
has felt since getting married. She thought she would be able to ignore her
married status more than this, thought she could detach herself from it. She
has been surprised, even disappointed in herself, at not being able to slough
it all off as easily as she thought. The change of name is bad enough; she had
rather liked being Princess Hélène Kuragina. Countess Bezukhova sounds old
somehow, positively frumpy. And then when she was Kuragin, her mind could play
games with itself, imagining that she and Anatole were married after all – one
of her few imaginings that she never shared with him. The difference is a
constant reminder to her that the world will now see her first and foremost as
Pierre’s wife,not, as she was proud to think of herself – Anatole’s sister.
It was the sex that got to her, though she hates to admit it or even think
about it, and even though she has been successfully avoiding all such
obligations ever since those early weeks. Avoiding obligations –it amuses her
bitterly the games a woman has to play, the censure she has to brave to
delicately avoid this dreary state of sanctioned and expected rape. She
supposes it is shocking of her even to view it in such terms. This is after
all, something she has known she was going to have to put up with since she
first encountered the idea of marriage.
Ultimately it is all more boring than it is traumatic. Pierre is useless,
obviously, and adds insult to injury by believing her to be the more
enthusiastic party. Well, perhaps that is not so much insulting after all, as
it is a testimony to her skills at deception. She can even enjoy how good she
must be at feigning interest, even delight, though she has tired of the game
now and it has taken only weeks for them to settle into a routine of marital
disharmony, only improved by the success of her suggestions that her husband
spend more and more time dealing with his estates, out of town.
And then, moving Dolokhov in was a further excellent remedy against boredom
and, if she is perfectly honest, a rather boring kind of despair. Even though
it was Anatole’s idea in the first place, she could not have thought of a
better one herself. She suspects that between the two of them they are using
him a bit unfairly, as a buffer zone for their own thorniness and individual
difficulties. She can sense an irritation in him that needs to come to a
greater head than simply duelling with Pierre.
That said, the duel is a delightful proposition.
“Will you kill him?” she asks, not quite ready to admit that she would welcome
the idea but unable not to bring it up all the same. Dolokhov looks at her
narrow eyed, not liking her entirely for it –
“Perhaps,” he says.
“Perhaps it would be the answer to everything,” she muses aloud. Dolokhov just
grunts non – comitally in reply. She finds it hard to explain to him fully the
extent of her distaste for Pierre, Anatole is better for this – he welcomes it
as proof if it were needed that she takes no joy in this marriage. That he
needs proof and that he would rather she were nothappy in this annoys her, but
all the same, she cannot help but despise the man, shutting everything she is
off from him all the more because she has had to share too much. She resents
him for it and does not expect there is any cure for this.
It is a marvel to Hélène, almost more than to the rest of society that she has
come, in these months to learn to play the social game more splendidly than
ever. She sails through her engagements and gatherings, through balls and
soirees like a swan at absolute ease upon a turbulent social sea. They are
starting to call her The Queen of Society.It makes her laugh with no small
amount of ridicule as well as victory. They will never know that her success is
powered by disillusionment, her smiles by a quiet kind of sarcasm. There is a
twinkle in her eye that all men are blinded by and all women wonder how to
emulate. But it is not possible to copy something born of such secrets. It is
love that keeps her shining, love that powers her sparkle; even in the face of
all her current provocations, she is secure in the knowledge that her boys will
love her forever and that even if the rest of the world follows suit it means
nothing. They are all just the backdrop to a play with only three characters.
She smiles at the words the back drop speaks as though watching the show behind
her. The truth is that Dolokhov lives in her smile and Anatole is the glimmer
in her eye, they will always be there, all else is nonsense.
She is torn between annoyance with this duel on account of her reputation and a
secret wicked pleasure that it could mean the end of her husband. She thinks
about playing the role of wealthy grief stricken widow and cannot help but
tingle in enjoyment at the anticipation of taking it on. She feels like an
actor sizing up her next part, eager for it. Devoted wifeis not going well for
her.
The morning of the duel, Anatole slips in unannounced and without declaring
himself, making his way through the quiet house to where she is still in bed.
He slips in beside her like a pleasant dream and just for one sweet moment she
forgets she is an adult and wakes up chattering to him in the language of their
childhood, old routines and silly words that are conversation to them but
garbled nonsense to anyone else.
“Did nobody see you come in?” she asks, finally, when they have flown over
every field of their rather untended imaginary landscape. She wonders if people
would be more shocked to know this was all they were doing in bed that morning
than what people might normally expect.
“No, I lurked. I waited until I saw Pierre go out.”
“Creep.”
“But it’s you I’m creeping over.”
This time he does kiss her, she enjoys it for a moment before putting a hand to
his face, like a kitten pushing away a toy it does not like.
“Stop it,” she laughs – “We shouldn’t. Not at a time like this.”
“It’s never a good time. Not nowadays.”
“Do you think Dolokhov will be alright?”
Anatole shrugs flamboyantly. She sighs; he has clearly not even considered the
question.
“Of coursehe will. He does this all the time. You’re not worriedare you?”
“No,” she lies “ No, of course not.” She strokes his nose with the tip of her
nose.
“What a terrible liar you are, sister.”
She snorts.
“I’m a wonderful liar. You’re just too dim to be taken in by it.”
Anatole scrunches his face up trying to find a way in which this might make
sense, trying to work out if she meant to make sense or not. She laughs,
watching his face. She feels better, suddenly, lighter, more herself. It is a
good feeling; she clamps down on it, sighing and sitting up. He tugs at her
arm.
“Stay.” She laughs. It feels good.
“I can’t. I need to be awake to find out how it went.”
“You areawake,”
“And you’re a pest. Get up.”
It should, she reflects, have been a more serious morning, but in the end it is
nearly afternoon by the time they leave the bedroom and mid-afternoon by the
time the servants – whom she has given strict orders to tell her as soon as
anything is known – come to her with the news that Pierre is alive and Dolokhov
is injured.
“I’m going to kill him,” she says, as soon as they have the room back to
themselves and to her amusement Anatole has said it in unison with her.
“We can’t both kill him,” she smiles ruefully – “Besides, how would it look if
you killed my husband?”
“I didn’t mean him,” Anatole scowls – “I’m going to kill Fedya. What did have
to lose for? he never loses duels. And why is he staying with Nikolai?” he
sneers the last part – “I’d have – I mean he could – Nikolai can’t have him!”
he finishes, pouting. Hélène rolls her eyes –
“Oh for god’s sake! Is that all you can think of? Go away, I have an idiot to
deal with.”
In the end she regrets kicking Anatole out, pacing the room for most of the
afternoon without hearing anything out of Pierre. She feels herself bristling
with tension, making every second seem like a spiny forever, her fists balling
angrily, wishing she could hit something, knowing that she will not. It is not
until the next morning, after only half sleeping that she finds Pierre asleep
on the ottoman and cannot keep the words from coming and even then it is a
restrained version of everything she would like to say, the rest lying
fractiously beneath her tongue.
When everything comes crashing around her – literally she supposes, not just
figuratively, she all but runs from the room, dresses quickly and furiously and
goes to the only safe place she can think of. Anatole has to be that place, he
always has been. She is furious to find herself trembling in the carriage on
the way there, furious that she should feel this confusing, headachy kind of
fear. She had though she was so old, so used to everything, so jaded. She had
believed herself above hurt or threats. But she never had been threatened
before, had she? She chides herself for being so stupid. Not to have allowed it
to happen, but for not imagining that it wouldhappen. She knows that Pierre is
useless and utterly incapable of carrying out on a genuine threat but with the
words I’ll kill youstill fresh in her ears she cannot quite hear the sound of
her own more rational voice.
She pauses on the doorstep, taking a deep breath before entering, pressing her
lips tightly together and feeling her own face ache with the effort of smiling.
In the end it is all for nothing because the first thing Anatole says when he
sees her in his front room is –
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
She sees his face go so quickly from surprise at her being there to concern
that there is obviously something the matter that she drops the whole pretence
in an instant. It is such a reliefthat she starts to cry, all the air going out
of her with her mask ripped off. And Anatole, Anatole is thereand holding her
and it feels pleasant, reassuring, but she hates herself for crying and for
being so small.She feels small and does not like it. It has never been this way
round; she can almost feel Anatole growing as she shrinks, not without a
certain amount of pride at being able to help her. She does not want to helped,
does not want to be looked after, if he was to pity her she would never forgive
him. She wants to be looked after so muchsuddenly and resents herself bitterly
for it. She stops crying after only a short while, sniffs briskly and tells him
everything simply and factually, from a point of distance far away from her own
words. By the time she has finished his face is almost white and he is
positively silent with anger. She steps back to give him room for it.
“I’m going to kill him,” he says between clenched teeth.
“Oh don’t be stupid, no you’re not,” she feels a bit better for saying it, more
like herself.
“He hurt you.”
“No. No not really. Not at all. I’m fine.”
“He threw a table at you!”
“He missed.”
“That’s not the –” Anatole clutches at her and to her relief it is more like
the usual way of things – he is the child needing her, holding her too tight –
“If he hadn’t –” his lower lip trembles in the endearing manner of a small boy.
Most little boys lose that sweet tremble when they grow up, he never has. He
buries his face in her hair, holds her tighter –
“I’m going to kill him,” he says again.
“He didn’t mean it. If he wanted to kill me –” she stops, realising this is
perhaps not the best or most comforting thing to say at this moment. Anatole’s
lip curls, she can feel an actual growl in his throat; it is almost
ridiculously attractive. He reaches for a sword he is not wearing.
“Oh what are you going to do?” she laughs, snorting without any real mirth –
“duel him? Haven’t we had enough of that? If it wasn’t for you boys and your
duels none of this would have happened.”
“Nobody hurts you,” Anatole persists stubbornly – “nobody. Or Fedya,” he adds.
“Well it’s alright. He’s leaving me, remember, reputation aside it’s all for
the best anyway.”
“Good.” Anatole nods – “I’m glad. You’re mine, not his, you’ll always be mine,
both of you and if I could –”
“Hush,” she kisses him lightly wondering why, when she is the injured party
here, she is now the one comforting him. What is wrongwith men? She smiles to
herself – “You can’t. That’s all. It will all be alright,” but really, she
supposes this is better, comforting him comforts her better than having him
comfort her. This has always been the way. Familiarity is comforting and there
is nothing, she thinks now, better than having someone know her as well as he
does and yet still manage to be so obtusely difficult.
“So what are you going to do now?” he asks. She nods, she has been trying to
think. She cannot as well as she would like to, she still feels stupidly
shaken, unable to think past today and so it is only in respect of that near
future that she answers –
“I’m going to stay here”. She nods and then, hating herself, almost cringing at
her own horrible vulnerability she adds –“Can I?”
He smiles in reply an affirmative he does not need to utter, completely and
utterly forgetting that just before she arrived he had been planning to go and
see Dolokhov.
__x__
I’m kinda unhappy with this chapter but I don’t really know why? like, I think,
in trying to avoid the bits that are canon it may have come out a bit choppy?
That and I have trouble with this whole section of events – I lived for ten
years with someone who threw stuff at/ threatened to kill me on a regular basis
so it’s hard to cover this dispassionately so I maybe went ooc on Helene a bit?
I dunno. Suggestions welcomed! :-)
***** Dolokhov, 1807 *****
 
Dolokhov, 1807.
 
By the time Anatole remembers and deigns to come and see him, Dolokhov is past
the point of hoping he would remember and has moved through annoyance and
disappointment and into the far more dangerous ground of never expected him
anyway.He had known Hélène would not, that she would prioritise reputation over
any consideration for him- if she had any to begin with. But Anatole actually
manages to surprise him by his lack of consideration, even when he knows that
such utter carelessness is one of the boy’s defining characteristics.
Strictly speaking he does not even come and see him, but sends a rather brief
note for him almost a week after the duel has taken place. He reads it angrily
and therefore repeatedly, annoying himself more and more each time at the
brevity and carelessness of the note. He considers not answering,
definitelyconsiders not going. In the end it is Nikolai who tells him that he
should, if only so that he will stop sitting around glaring and debating with
himself about it. He sets off with a horrible foreknowledge that it is not
going to go well.
Hélène is not there when he arrives. He is vaguely, almost casually pleased
about this, and at the same time not surprised. He has not wanted to see her
less since before he met her. It is almost ironic that the rumour about the two
of them should have started up at a time when things were going so badly
between them. The rumours had been true of course but just because they were
fucking did not mean they had been getting on. Hélène had been getting to him
the same way Anatole usually got to him; constantly going on about her brother
to him, knowing that he was seeing more of him than she was, trying to use him
as a blanket or a bridge in the problems between the two of them. He didcare;
he did not like these problems. At the same time they were theirs and he was
starting to feel a little more than fractious at being used as the go –
between.
When she wasn’t complaining about Anatole she was complaining about Pierre. He
did not think he would have minded either of these things if she had just come
out and said everything she meant in a straight forward manner. But she didn’t.
She would just constantly drop leads for him to pick up and he then
belligerently would fail to take the bait and she would never just vent without
what she had seen as a silent approval and so it had all just fumed away
beneath the surface expelling itself in irritated gusts of breath or irritable,
non – consequential comments that he began more and more to ignore. The duel
had just been the final straw – she had gone on and on at him to provoke
Pierre; he very much suspected that she had written the note herself that had
told Pierre of the affair. To make this worse, he knew that she in turn
suspected him of the same thing and was stubbornly not asking him about it just
as he was stubbornly not talking to her.
Altogether she had put him in a frame of mind where he could see nothing good
out of talking to Anatole just at this time. He realised that the part of him
that led his feet to Anatole’s house that evening was the part of him that
never walked away from a fight, who met it bullishly, head on even if it was
far from the right thing to do. He did not even knock, just walked in.
Anatole was in  an irritatingly good mood, throwing his arms around his friend
quite typically, not noticing that Dolokhov was reticent in accepting the hug
or remembering that he was still injured until he stepped away briskly, wincing
slightly.
“Oh yes, sorry, I forgot.”
“Of course you did” Dolokhov sighed, slouching past him into a chair – “How’s
Hélène?”
“Oh yes, of course you haven’t heard? No why would you – you know she and
Pierre have separated, isn’t it wonderful?” Anatole’s face goes from being
cloudy to joyous in the space of seconds – “Did you hear what he did?”
Actually Dolokhov has heard, of course he has, it would have been impossible
for anyone not living under a rock in the country not to have heard about Count
Bezuchov’s split with his wife. It annoys him that Anatole could imagine that
he – as in fact the rumoured cause of the break up would not have heard about
it – neither does it surprise him.
“No” he drawls wearily. “What happened?”
Anatole tells him at length and with absolute animation in every reaction from
delight at the beak up to wanting to kill Pierre for threatening his sister,
never once noticing the utter impassivity hiding the growing irritation with
which Dolokhov listens to him.
He is thinking, as Anatole speaks, about Nikolai and his family. How they have
welcomed him in the last two weeks, whilst his lovers have ignored him. How
they did not even know him but have accepted him in their house to the point
where he no longer even has to announce himself. He thinks about a family life
like that, how different it is from anything he has encountered, the foolish
amiable count and his typically nagging wife, Nikolai himself, who seems to
live in a state of ignorance Dolokhov finds himself in the mood to find
charming.
There is something so charmingly, wilfully dim and pleasant and drably cheerful
about day to day life at the Rostov’s, whether it be teaching card tricks to
young Petya who already looks up to him as though he is a hero, or the way
Nikolai’s admiration shines through his every word, only just a little more
hidden than his brother’s. Even Natasha’s barely concealed bristling dislike
and suspicion amuses him, and then there is Sonya.
Sonya shines more brightly than the rest of her family put together. He wonders
that it is not obvious to all of them but instead only sees how they ignore her
and take her for granted. There is something of his sister in her, he thinks,
that quiet pensive intelligence, that sweet acceptance that expects and asks
for nothing. It makes him almost sad. He wishes he could just tell her I see
youbecause he cannot help but do so, every time he walks into a room of
boisterous overbearing Rostovs, it is the quiet gentle girl in corner his eye
always turns to. He could imagine taking this girl home to meet his mother and
sister. He could imagine it going well, easily. It is not uncomfortable like it
is to imagine Hélène around them. He feels a stab to the heart at a certain
perceived treachery at this thought, followed quickly by chastising himself for
ever thinking he should be loyal to Hélène. It occurs to him that Anatole has
stopped talking.
“I see,” he says flatly – “So that’s why you never came to see me.”
Anatole blinks at him, as though surprised at his tone.
“Yes, I’m sorry about that.”
“You’re not though, are you? You maybe had a moment of thinking you should see
if I was surviving and then you dropped it all because she turned up at the
door.”
“Of course I did, she was upset – I really don’t see –”
“You never do - do you?” he explodes, but it a rather weary explosion – “You –
both of you – you just fall through life not caring who you touch or who you
hurt. You don’t seeanything, either of you.”
“Honestly Fedya, you’re being ridiculous.”
“No Anatole – ridiculous is you, I at least sometimes think twice before I
act.”
“This is to do with Nikolai, isn’t it?” Anatole says suddenly. “Because he was
there at the time and he helped you out, now you like him better than me
because he makes those eyes at you like a faithful dog.”
“Don’t you –this is nothing to do with Nikolai. I’m just sick of it. I won’t
keep being the go between for you and your sister, I’m not here to be your
errand boy or fight your sister’s duels. I could have –”
He stops. He will not lower himself to this. He could have died; he has been
thinking about it ever since the duel. He cannot deny to himself that losing
has thrown him, frightened him even, and to lose to such a man as Pierre is a
shame he does not like to admit to. Even if he will just about bring himself
around to the thought of it he is a great distance off saying it out loud, even
to Anatole. Just now especiallyto Anatole.
“You think I wouldn’t have cared,” Anatole looks at him with sudden unusual
insight, wide eyed, pouting.
“Wouldyou? You’re careless, spoiled, selfish things, staring at yourselves in
mirrors and only ever seeing each other. Why shouldyou have eyes or time for
the rest of the world.”
“What’s the world got to do with anything?”
Dolokhov looks at him silently for a long moment, chest tight, hurting. Finally
he closes his eyes; it is too hard to do this in front of that trembling little
boy lip.
“I’m in it,” he says finally, rising and sighing deeply, walking past Anatole
without looking at him –
“I’m sorry,” he adds frowning at the door, leaving Anatole alone, he knows,
wondering why and how this has happened and even what has happened.
Three days later he asks Sonya to marry him. He surprises himself with it but
also finds himself under a whole new set of dreams and potential prospects of
the future. He imagines a quiet life, a normal one, wife and children, being
able to give this girl a life she deserves, helping her to a sense of her own
worth and saving something of himself in the process. The more he has seen her
do, the casual neglect and dismissal he sees her constantly take from the rest
of them has all combined to make him ready to think he could devote everything
into giving her something better. Aside from a lingering deep bitterness that
he pushes down, he feels good about it when he asks and is utterly shocked when
the turns him down.
“Forgive me,” she says, looking down at her hands and pressing her lips
together – “I must thank you for the sentiments but I cannot – I just –” she
grows flustered and he presses her hand gently, not wishing to scare her but
she still takes a step away.
“Is there anything I can say that might make you change your mind?”
“Forgive me –” she says again, she spends her life in apology, he thinks, he
wishes it could be easy to change that. “Forgive me for it, but it is not my
mind that is at question.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“It is yours,” she says, surprising him again – “You don’t really love me.”
“I promise you –”
“Please,”she insists. There is an unexpected strength in her; it surprises him
less, he supposes, than it would her family. “Please don’t say anything either
of you will regret.”
“Either of – who? I don’t understand.”
“I do not mean to invade or to assume –” she says thoughtfully. “But there’s
someone else, isn’t there?”
It reminds him so strongly of the time his sister had guessed about Anatole,
right at the beginning, that he cannot deny it.
“I do not mean to imply that you are trying to deceive me,” she says quickly.
“You think you love me, I am sure, but you love them more even if just now you
think otherwise–” he avoids her eyes, the depth of her perception (them).
“Please,” she says again, eyes large and frightened, perhaps at her own daring
– “I do not mean to hurt you, but I think we would both regret it if you were
to marry me simply because you have been injured on someone else’s account.”
He smiles humourlessly. She is right of course; he had not had any idea his
heart could be so visible to anyone. It is a bitter irony, he thinks that she
could see him as well as he does her, but what she sees is a truth that the
life he had begun to envision cannot belong to him. He does not feel better for
knowing it, but yes, he loves Anatole. He will always love Anatole. Helene too,
damn it, and he was being a coward in seeking this sweet simplicity.
“You’re right,” he says heavily, after the battle has been lost, pauses. “There
is someone else for you too, I think.”
“Yes,” she murmurs, unflinching in her honesty, “but that’s irrelevant, isn’t
it?”
He shakes his head in denial of this.
“Yes,” she insists, adding with a sadness that should be self-pitying but is
somehow merely factual – “It’s always been irrelevant.”
Dolokhov breathes a tight little breath, kisses the hand he is still holding in
his and breaks away.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” he states, nods to her and leaves.
Whoever it was, Dolokhov thinks, he would not deserve her. But he knows who it
is and he determines that his last act before he returns to his real people
will be to ruin the idiot.
__x__
 
So my beta is sad about this chapter cause our babies had a break up and they
really hate Dolokhov/ Sonya…so if anyone out there feels the same rest assured
they will all be back together pretty soon (i.e. next chapter)….except for poor
Sonya of course who still just ends up sad and alone. :-(
And I’m just hoping I wrote Sonya ok cause I love. her. I – uh – don’t love the
Rostovs, I fear I maybe made that a bit too clear! :-)
***** Interlude 1807 – 1810 *****
 
Interlude 1807 – 1810
 
He thinks about the way they move, push and pull back and forth; but he always
comes back here in the end, somehow they always fall back together. He feels it
more than ever after dreaming of another life – the distance and the mistiness
of the dream and the reality of these two next to him, this life that he never
imagined, asked for, or could imagine lasting. He thinks about the stars
sparkling from Anatole’s eyes, the sun caught between Helene’s teeth,
illuminating the corner of her smile. For better or worse they are his people,
and he cannot imagine questioning it again. He thinks about the movement of
bodies, of the geography and history of their lives, like tides pulling away
and coming back but he always comes crashing back here with these two as his
land.
She thinks about how beautiful they are, the three of them. Of her and Anatole
barely separable in her mind, and Dolokhov as the background that sets them
off, making them all the more beautiful for the element of contrast. Ebb and
flow they come together, fall apart, it has stopped concerning her like it used
to, now that she knows how this dance is meant to go. It is always easy once
you learn the steps. They fight, they make up, they move away, they come back
into place. It goes on.
He thinks about the sensations they bring; the softness of his sister’s skin,
the warmth of her hair and the coolness of her thighs, Dolokhov’s smile and
that smiling mouth against his skin. He thinks about being between the two of
them, rough and smooth, he is made of them and they of him. He is unaware of
the times they are apart and always delights when they are back together. He
knows that nothing can keep them from happiness for long; that come as trials
will, happiness is the fundamental state of existence, the point of it all. He
does not have to words to express this to an outsider – someone like Pierre
perhaps, always searching for a deeper meaning. There is no deeper meaning – he
wishes, vaguely, that everyone, even Pierre, could understand this and be
happy. He understands it and life is good. It is that simple, he thinks, it
really is.
Anatole never noticed he had gone, never even knew they had split up. Dolokhov
can barely believe it at first, but when he comes to realise it he is not even
surprised. He wonders about telling him, wonders if he would be pleased to hear
– that having considered another way he discarded it and came back knowing that
they were, all three of them, stronger than he had ever imagined. In the end he
does not tell; he realises, that without any malice at all Anatole simply would
not care. Are we good?he asks when they meet again, his eyes so big and
innocent that Dolokhov thinks of all the complex thoughts and ideas he had
about relationships, his relationships and what they signify, what future he
can imagine – thinks about the weeks of contemplation, and smiles into those
wide open wondering eyes – yes dear boy, we’re good.
She realises what has happened and thinks about talking to one or both of them
about it. But what is the point in trying to explain it to Anatole, who will
not understand and who she cannot bear to see sad. She could say to him do you
realise he’s left us?and he would nod and smile, say yes I know, he’s gone away
for a while and when is he coming back?She can shake her head at him in
affectionate despair because he is her happiness and her joy. When Dolokhov
doescome back she tells herself of course,convincing herself she never doubted
that he would and surprised to find how tight her chest had become at the idea
of him being gone for good. She realises, for the second time, how in love with
him she is and wonders, for the thousandth time when this happened. She does
not really talk to him either, but copying Anatole meets his eye warily and
asks him are we good?and he laughs and holds her tight and answers yes my dear,
we’re good.
They even laugh over the suspicions that sprang up between them - Did you write
that letter to Pierre? No, did you? No!They believe each other because it does
not matter at this stage if they are lying or not. Love is innocent above all
else, it does not have to care. We move, he thinks; we dance, we fight, we
love, our footsteps weave a web we will always live in, we three, the only
people in the world we have made ourselves, and that’s good, it’s right. He
sighs to think of it – he did not necessarily want it to feel so right but it
is, it’s only us that matter, it’s only ever the people we love that matter.
That’s not wrong.
When he leaves Anatole sulks, but not for very long. If he had been prone to
tears he might even have cried and again, not for very long. Emotions are a
river to him, they never stop moving, flowing into each other. He supposes he
is learning to accept change on the condition that his major bedrocks can stay
the same.
She knows she is one of these rocks. She has always been his anchor and would
not want to change this. But at the same time, she imagines Dolokhov’s
adventures and sees herself in them as well. Her life, by necessity, can only
contain so much movement and she dreams about the places Dolokhov writes to
them about, the dust and the heat of which he speaks, incomparable, he says to
any summer they have ever known here. She imagines herself as a bird in the
blue sky of which he speaks, but in the end the landscape she looks down on is
her own imaginary kingdom. She cannot, however hard she tries, really imagine a
desert in a way that brings it to life.
He writes home; such different letters to his mother, his sister and his
lovers. He makes the stories safer for the former and more dangerous for the
latter. He does not lie, not as such, but he weaves it different colours
dependant on the listener. The stories sound as they ought but are never quite
what the eye sees or his head takes in. When he first sees the Shah’s palace on
the edge of the sands he thinks of boiled sweets, the colourful kind that are
Anatole’s favourite. He sees the domes and spires of the place shimmer in the
sun and he thinks of a Petersburg ballroom plucked out and thrown into the
desert. He thinks of Helene and how she shines. He blinks sweat out of his eyes
and shifts his feet with the sand in his shoes and he knows there is no way he
can reallydescribe any of this to anyone else.
Anatole feels. He feels before he thinks, speaks or acts, if sometimes only
moments before. Since Helene’s marriage he has learned, he supposes, a little
about restraint, enough to not ruin their lives irreparably- but not as much,
as Helene always says, as he should have. It is easy for him to live, to love,
to hurt. He laughs and cries by turns, as unashamed of his feelings as a child.
It is easy to feel when unimpeded by having to think. Every taste, every touch,
every new sensation is a joy to him. He lives in the downing of vodka, in a
raucous shout, in the moment of orgasm. His life is a series of moments, his
pain hard and fast and real and his joy savage by turns and long and golden and
unwinding at others. A bright flash of colour like a jewel is pleasing, the
taste of sweetness, the sound of her voice. He does not often stop to reflect
on what he does not have or cannot have; he makes himself put these things
away, tries not to even wish for them.
And sometimes he does wish, he wishes that Dolokhov were here, wishes he could
kiss Helene nowand not wait until this evening. Now and then he dares wish the
big things, that they were all somehow married and living together. He throws
wishes up to the sky which swallows them; in the warm air he thinks of Dolokhov
wherever he is, looking up too and feeling the same warmth, seeing that same
blue. He thinks about his breath travelling through the air stream and always
finding Fedya’s or Helene’s, all of their lives dancing somewhere together in
the sky. He smiles to think of how close they are beneath this same sky, smiles
to think how small the sky is.
It occurs to her too, how big they are, how little the world can hold them,
how, however far apart they are it is not far at all. The sky is a plate, a
dome, a ceiling, beyond which they can none of them fly and sometimes she feels
more hemmed in by it than she ever could indoors. But these days, when so much
keeps the three of them apart, she takes comfort in this, how close they must
be. She watches the clouds, playing in her head the games they played as
children and a part of her feels to the point of real knowledge that Anatole is
playing the same game at the same time and seeing the same shapes he does. When
he goes away with the army again she plays her games all the more. Down here on
earth she plays with people, becomes infamous for her lovers, chewing them up
and spitting them out, always searching for new methods of control over men. It
was never necessary before she was married. Nobody knows how, for all her
practicality, her head is in the clouds. She breathes only the same air as two
people, smells and feels and sees them everywhere. Because of them she is
flying high above the stage on which she plays the mortal aspect of her lie. Up
here she smiles to think how close they are beneath this same sky, smiles to
think how small the sky is.
His story is fast becoming mythological. He could begin to get delusions of
grandeur that are hardly even delusions at all. He could fit himself into so
many roles; traveller, wanderer, Romantic hero, assassin, story teller,
trickster. I should be my own religionhe thinks with only the faintest twinge
of guilt that this is going too far. But he thinks about the figure he makes,
the shadow he casts and cannot help but be impressed. He cannot imagine
returning home with anything other than a thundering superiority complex,
trailing hand in hand the small whiny child of his own self-doubt. He thinks
too much, he supposes. Sometimes he wonders if he has to, to make up for
Anatole’s absence of deeper thought. He wonders if Helene does too, as though
there were only so many characteristics to go round and they all have to
complement each other, one person divided into three by the hand of some over
enthusiastic god. Because they are always here with him. He is tethered to
them, even to himself by the smooth stone in his pocket that Anatole gave him
one day, by the ring Helene gave him that he wears on a chain around his neck.
He feels the smoothness of that round stone whenever his hand goes into his
pocket, so often sees the rainbows reflected from the diamond on its chain
whenever the sun hits at a certain angle and can all but smell them beside him.
He hears their voices in even the most exotic bird song, feels their skin in
every man and woman he touches, sees their eyes sparkle in every reflected
light. He squints into the sunlight, into the hard dazzle of the sky, smiling
to think how close they all are beneath it, how small this sky really is.
And the sky looks down and does not care.
__x__
***** Kassia, Winter 1810 *****
 
Kassia, Winter 1810
 
“Oh father I am so happy!” the young girl cries, burying her face in her hands
at the feel of it, shoulders shaking in her own delight. The father smiles
tolerantly, used to his daughters’ sudden loves and hates, their triumphs and
their great calamities.
“She’s in love” her sister says. Ela is younger, much younger it sometimes
seems to Kassia, who at seventeen thoroughly considers herself an adult and her
younger sister a child. Well perhaps it is that way, she is not sure she would
know. She is not sure she can know anything for sure beneath the weight of such
happiness as this. She knew she would fall in love as soon as the Russian
militia came into town; they all looked so smart and handsome, the gold of
their uniforms glinting in the icy sun. She had known, and she feels wise for
knowing, but she had not known it would be so very like a fairy tale and she
cannot stop laughing for the beauty of it. Normally she would at least glare at
her sister for speaking so plainly such a lovely secret thing, but this time
she is too proud and pleased with the story she has written herself into to
hide it.
“I am” she says proudly “I love him and he loves me. He’s a prince and he loves
me.” She wants to laugh forever, today she could. What girl has not dreamed of
being able to utter such words? And to think that they are actually true.She
hugs herself for joy.
“She’s going to have his babies” her sister adds, teasing, doing what she
always does, trying to get a rise – she meant to say she wants to have his
babiesbut she thinks that this twist on it will aggravate her sister more.
Their father snorts and Kassia laughs again but even as she does so she finds
herself growing warm in the cheeks – she supposes it must make her quite red
faced – because it occurs to her that this really could be true. Her eyes widen
and grow misty and her head leans to one side a little, face sobering as she
thinks about the truth of this and how wonderful and magical it could be.
And then her father notices and everything starts to go wrong. She feels her
world spin when his rough bark of laughter at their silliness stops and he is
watching the change in her face with the horror of a man watching clouds cross
the sky too quickly to get the livestock out of the rain and the grain into a
place of safety.
“No” he says. He wishes it was an order, Kassia can tell, but it is not, just a
terrified question that chills her and makes her wonder for the first time if
she did something wrong. Even Ela’s face grows dark beneath this cloud as she
realises that something has gone out of tune. She had only been joking – at
least she thought she had.
“You’re not.” he turns this to her in that same tone of voice, the tone that is
still a question but tells her clearly enough to answer it well if she values
her life. She cannot lie, she has never been able to lie. It is hardly
something she could cover up later if the lie was discovered.
“I don’t know” she says, looking down at the floor, the sunshine and the
laughter gone – “Maybe” she digs her toe into the floorboard, staring at the
grain in wood, a spot where the lines form an eye shape. Even that stares back
at her accusingly. When she peeps up again her father is looking at her like he
would quite like to slap her but no, she realises this is something that goes
beyond that and he asks her very quietly what the blackguard’s name is. The
first time she tries to reply no word will come out; she had struggled to
pronounce such unfamiliar syllables anyway, when they do escape her lips it is
in a whisper like wind beneath the panes, careful and flawed;
“Kuragin”.
-x-
The day before the wedding is the next day that she sees him. She is no longer
sure quite what to think or feel. On the one hand her father, when he came back
that night told her the man had agreed to marry her, on the other hand he has
neither let her see him nor go out of the house since then, not one foot beyond
the gate he said. She has gone about in a dream, dancing through the corridors,
bothering her sister, just as she has always done, dreaming of the Russian army
in their camp beyond the village and her prince who said he loved her at looked
at her with such merriment and happiness in his eyes. He must have loved her to
look at her so happily and truly he must anyway because he has agreed to marry
her, a girl of such little wealth and status, at least compared to what he must
be used to. She goes from moment to moment in raptures at the Romance of it and
in despair that she cannot see him with dark shadowed moments in between in
which she wonders why her father looks at her so oddly, why he does not let her
out, why, if her beloved has agreed to this marriage, she is being vaguely
treated like she has done something wrong.
Then on the evening before the wedding he comes and when he does the sun shines
out of her face again through all the cloud. She sees him down the road with a
man she saw with him before, another attractive tall Russian gentleman with a
wicked twinkle in his eye that makes him almost as handsome as her prince.
“They’re here!” she cries, hopping from foot to foot at the window – “Father
may I?”
Her father’s voice is weary, heavy with misgiving when he waves her out the
door with a brush of the hand as though she were a cat. She barely hears it,
running down the yard with an almost dancing step, knowing how beautiful she
must seem in her happiness and simplicity just to see them. She sees the friend
pat her prince on the shoulder in a gesture she does not understand, but in the
end all she can feel is pleasure and gratitude that he walks off a little way
to let them be together. She clasps the well gloved hands in her own bare small
ones, impulsively, almost giggling, pleased beyond the telling of it that she,
as his wife to be has a right to do this.
He does not behave as though she had a right to do it. She feels her forehead
crumple instantly at the stiff and formal way he detaches himself from her with
a chill that almost feels like distaste. But she refuses to trust her initial
assumption and speaks as she had planned to, regardless.
“I am so happy!” she looks up into his face and he is smiling gently as he is
always smiling, looking so perfectly unconcerned about everything the only
assumption anyone could make is that everything is going to be alright.
“Are you?” she cannot quite gauge his tone of voice.
“Of course! I can hardly believe it! – that you love me and would want to marry
me – it’s too wonderful!”
“Oh my dear” he says and her heart flutters like a butterfly and he gently
touches her hair – “Of course I don’t love you.”
“What?” she blinks very rapidly, certain she has misheard but more certain, in
her plummeting heart that she has not misheard – “But you said you’d marry me.
You told my father –”
“Yes of course I did.” he nods, he hardly even looks at her – “Because he
threatened to run me through if I did not.”
“But –” it is all wrong, her eggshell world is cracking in a dozen and more
places – “You saidyou loved me.”
“Well I did say that –” he nodded – “Before –”
Her eyes widen as she realises before whatand for the first time in her
recently adult life – if it can even be called such – she finds herself growing
furious – it pools in her as powerful as desire and twice as fast.
“Oh!” she cries, eyes brimming with anger, not sadness and she finds herself
again struck stupid, speechless with it – “Oh you -!” she puts a hand to her
mouth afraid of herself for even thinking of calling him all the things it
occurs to her to call him. Even now she cannot do such a thing as would admit
to herself that it really has all gone so badly.
“But –” she says slowly, her brain running faster than it ever has, seeking a
next best ideal to fix upon – “You could growto love me – once we are married.”
“No” he shakes his head at her and she catches a glimpse of the sadness behind
his smile that so few saw and she thinks that maybe, if he were not destroying
her, feel sorry for him.
“No my dear I could not, you see – I love another – someone else – you see?”
she finds herself backing away a little; she has heard stories like this before
too; she basked in the tragedy, the sting of them. She never for a moment
imagined these could be the stories she would inhabit. She turns her back on
him not wanting to hear any more. He touches her shoulder, turning her back
round, not entirely gently.
“She is everything” he says. She wonders why he has to, but understands that he
does, as though he has never been able to say such things before and maybe is
only saying them to her because she does not know who the girl in question is.
“Everything”he repeats and the sounds seem to come from far away – “She’s the
laughter in the theatre when everyone else is crying. She’s the sob you’d never
hear behind the breaking glass at dinner. She’s my destruction and my
salvation, my life.And there was a moment, just for second when something in
your smile reminded me of her and that made you good enough if just for one
night. But my dear you’re nother and you never could be. She’s so much lovelier
than you it would make your head reel.”
“Why?” Kassia whispers, her face is so wet and she barely knows why or how,
even when she started to cry and her whydoes not even mean what she thought it
would. She wants to ask why would you do this? Why would you say this? Why
would you think I was the person to give this to?But instead of anything so
pathetic she shocks herself by spilling out an angry –
“Why would you not marry her then?”
His lip twitches. She watches him fight it with a small sense of satisfaction.
He looks for a moment like he would quite like to strike her. That almost
pleases her, savagely, too. It is as if he has been wearing a flawless plaster
mask and now she can see an ugly dark crack like a wound across the surface.
When he does speak it is thin lipped, bloodless, just two words spat out with
snarling venom –
“I can’t.”
She wants to make it worse, she realises, cannot believe that he has given her
something to stab him with, finds herself on the brink of asking, with cold
curiosity another deadly why.He clearly sees it in her eyes, a question lined
up like a cannon;
“Tomorrow” he says quickly – “I’ll see you in church tomorrow and I’ll be
leaving with the regiment when we move on.”
 He turns his back on her abruptly, before she can object any further.
“Fedya!” she hears him call to his companion – “We’re leaving, come on.”
His companion saunters over, taking his time as though none of this is anything
to him. He actually pats her shoulder sympathetically as he passes, winks at
her, giving her a cheer upsmile and a little shrug. As their figures get
smaller down the path leading back into the village she hears the faint
laughter they must imagine does not reach her.
__x__
 
So I wrote this bit almost before any of the other bits so if it doesn’t fit so
well now I am sorry, I have wiggled it a bit to make it work better. I’m also
really not sure if Dolokhov would be there, I suspect he probably wouldn’t but
I can’t bring myself to ever write out a Dolohov so here he is. :-) Also cause
I wrote it so long ago it might be unbeta'd but i honestly don't recall, if so
I apologise for my spelling and grammar. 
Ona  random note I was basing this chapter stylistically and structurally on
the Sybil Vane chapter from “The picture of Dorian Gray” – randomly, and
another reason it might not work in context. Essentially if I ever got this
published as a book  I’d probably take it out but since that’s unlikely and
all, it can stay!
***** Hélène, February 1811 *****
 
Bit of a cop out this chapter I'll admit - it's exactly the same as I wrote for
part of"The Bet" but I'm way too lazy to re-write the Great Comet era events
again and this works just as well here as it did in that one so yeah, feel free
to skip if you've already read that one. :-)
 
 
Hélène, February 1811
 
 She had never much believed in superstition; omens and portents, divination –
it all seemed rather silly to her. She could not answer in her own mind if
there was such a thing as fate, some mystical design or pattern in the world,
and she was not entirely sure how anybody could. She wondered if it was all an
advanced game of make believe, a group of children still crowded round a
mirror, giggling and enjoying the feeling of awe in the face of a force beyond
them. She was not sure there was a force beyond herself, and if there was it
was hardly relevant to her life so it did not seem to be something she need
waste much time with.
But then tonight she finds herself looking up at the sky and is struck by a
feeling of curious dread. She does not like it; it is discomforting, and more
to the point ridiculous. In truth she does not look up at the sky much these
days, especially not at night. The stars that everyone spoke of as so
limitless, so infinite have always seemed to her like decorations stuck onto
the bottom of an upturned bowl and the sky itself was just that bowl, closing
in around the horizon, the world only existing as far as she could see it. It
had always given her a vague and doubtless silly sense of claustrophobia.
But tonight, she frowns, going inside and turning away from the sky – seeing
that dark bowl slashed across with that startling streak of silver – it was as
though the lid of the world was cracking. She had heard people talk; Pierre
babbling away about portents and the end of the world. She was not sure about
that. There seemed to be something portending the end of the world every couple
of years, some bizarre unfounded dread that circulated society in hushed
whispers – that same nonsensical sense of awe all over again. All the same, it
seemed to her that if the heavy covering of sky that held the whole world in
could look so very like there was a crack in it, perhaps the whole thing could
just break apart. For the first time the words brink of warand defining moments
in our historystruck some kind of meaning for her and she found herself
shuddering as she drifted slowly up to her suite.
“Get your feet off the table; that’s mahogany,” she sighs wearily, Anatole
shrugs, moving only slowly and setting an apple core down on the same small
table his boots had previously occupied.
“What’s the matter with you tonight?”
“Nothing, what’s the matter with you?”
“You’re in a mood.”
“No I’m not,” she shrugs too airily; most would hardly notice – “What are you
doing here?”
“I live here remember? At least these days, it seems.”
“If you say so. It’s becoming easy to forget. Where have you been?”
She shrugs her cloak off onto the floor, a whisper of green, a waterfall
puddling at her feet.
“Oh. Here and there.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Here and there he says, not knowing I know all about it. Shouldn’t you be off
still playing your little boy abduction games with Dolokhov?”
“Ohh, I see.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t.”
“She’s moody, she’s chilly, she’s annoyed about our plans –” he leans back
heavily in the chair, splaying a hand out in front of him unnecessarily and
ostentatiously examining his finger nails – “She’s jealous.”
A sudden rage that is not really all that sudden rises up inside her and her
hand raises before she can stop it and she whips around to face him. He raises
an eyebrow with insolent amusement, rises and takes hold of her wrist, taking
advantage of the pause in which she holds herself back.
“Slap me. I might like it.” His fingers tighten around her wrist; she tries to
pull away and failing to do so stamps on his foot –
“I am notjealous,” she hisses, yanking her hand back – “I’m neverjealous,” she
adds too quickly – “Fuck who you want, je m’en fous.”
“Liar.”
“Oh for god’s sake, shut upAnatole.” She puts her hands on her hips, squeezes
her eyes closed, presses her lips together, everything to hold herself in.
“Are you crying?” he still has that half amused, half teasing tone and it makes
her careful, steely attempt at self preservation waver.
“No, I’m not fucking crying,” she spits, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.
“Hey –” he touches her shoulder, gently. She shrugs it off irritated, but in
the same breath feels herself turning, pressing her face into his shoulder,
partly for comfort, partly so that he cannot see.
“I’m not jealous,” she says again, muffled, standing there stiffly, arms
refusing to go round him like they want to. He holds her though, rubbing her
back in a way that implies both comfort and that she is being very silly. She
realises that in repeating herself she is making the lie more obvious but does
not seem to be able to stop herself – “It’s stupid. I’m not jealous. You’re not
jealous. Neither of us are ever jealous.”She repeats it leadenly, like a
mantra, because it is such a painful damned lie but it has to be true, she has
to make it true, has been working on making it true for years. It frustrates
her that it can still be so difficult.
He opens his mouth to say something, she has a horrible feeling it might be an
awkward platitude, a wooden there there,and he feels it too and closes his
mouth again.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says instead.
“What doesn’t matter?” now her arms do go around him.
“Well none of it. None of it matters a bit. Nothing matters and everything is
fine. We don’t speak of such things, remember?” It is a mantra more often
repeated perhaps than any of the others. He touches her cheek gently, she
raises her head, he takes her face in his hand, gently brushing her chin.
“ I remember.”she sighs through gritted teeth – “Don’t –” but he does; he
kisses her and there is something so frightening in it that it leaves her
breathless, kissing back with no lies and too much passion, too much love; the
story of their life, clinging to each other all the while more like children
than lovers. They might have stayed that way all night if not for the need to
breathe and when she does take a breath, leaning her cheek against his, head
half on his shoulder he kisses her forehead and tenderly whispers –
“Lend me some money.”
“What?”
She almost jumps away, a flash of fire in her eyes like that streak across the
sky. This time she doesslap him.
“Va te faire foutre vous merde embulent!”
Anatole rubs his cheek and looks at her, frowning –
“I – I don’t even know what you just called me –”
“Maybe if you’d listenedin our French lessons instead of stopping after
s’enfuir avec moi ma charmante -” she stops, sighs, shakes her head, suddenly
incredibly weary – “How much do you want?”
“I suppose about twenty thousand?”
She swears under her breath, but at least so he can understand her this time.
“I don’t have that. You can have ten. Get the rest from Dolokhov.”
“Thank you,” he nods a little stiffly, his eyes shift away from her – “I didn’t
–” it occurs to him, only just now that he had timed his request rather
terribly – “I didn’t kiss you so you’d lend me the money.”
She snorts, shrugs one shoulder.
“I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it.”
“You really think I’d do that?”
“Yes.”
He shakes his head at her, at a loss what to say –
“I don’t – I’m not – it’s just –” whatever it is, she can see it is more than
he can articulate – “Hélène I –”
“Don’t!”her eyes widen and her heart stops – “Don’t you fucking dare.” He
sighs, looks down at the floor, digs a toe into the carpet –
“We won’t be gone that long. It’s not like I’m making a life with her and when
I get back –” he grins at her, sunny again – “When I get back you’re going to
owe me for a bet well won.”
She rolls her eyes, forces herself to smile. It feels like a crack across her
face, finishes burrowing in her desk and shoves the ten thousand ungraciously
at his chest.
“You can go – and I don’t care if you never come back,” but she is smiling
wryly as she says it and he knows that everything, though damaged, is not
broken.
“I will come back.” He clasps her hand at his chest just for a moment, kissing
her knuckles briefly; knowing that to do more just now would be unwise, he
touches her face with the lightest of fingertips and leaves.
She sighs in his wake, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand. She
walks over to the window, feeling all of a sudden terribly alone. Outside the
clouds have covered up the stars and the comet is gone from view. It is just a
mask, she knows, those clouds, everything bright and unforgiving is still
there, tearing away at the sky like claws at the heart. Everything is still
there beneath that soothing softness of cloud, just as jagged, just as scarred
as it was before.
x
When it all comes tumbling down she finds herself reduced to the side lines
watching with the rest of Moscow. She wants to be the first to say I told you
soeven if it is not entirely true. She supposes Dolokhov, who really has that
prerogative will probably not take advantage of it.
She is half amused at Pierre having torn up and down the town searching whilst
Anatole has been here all along. Well, she amends, first at Dolokhov’s and then
here. She is almost saddened that her curious husband could think so little of
him, think so little of them both, all this while assuming Anatole is just up
to further mischief at the club or the houses they have both been known to
frequent when all the while he was only ever with the people that he loved.
After all she has berated him both inside and out for the ridiculous
carelessness of his plan in the end all she feels is a surge of defensive
protectiveness, like she used to get when they were little and he was so very
innocent, so surprised when he was told that the thing he had done was bad.
He has hardly changed now, she reflects; too blind to the results of his own
actions, he finds himself fully able to believe that he never does any harm. It
would positively hurt him to imagine that he had done and she has always
protected him from such discovery. It is, she supposes, sighing – a desperate
kind of innocence and she wonders if it was right of her to have always
nurtured this in him.
She thinks about trying to explain to him some of the things she has learned;
how wicked the world is, how corrupt; how judgemental people will inevitably
be. Nothing is good, and everything is wrong in the eyes of society. It is a
tightrope she has to walk every day, every day feeling like she could fall at
any moment. Much as her heart cries for him to join her everywhere she cannot
have him up here on that tightrope in the dark; she needs him below her in the
light to catch her when she does fall. She remembers him so many years ago,
asking her whywith tears in her eyes, crying, his head in her lap, clinging to
her like he could never let go and none of the lines she could think of in
reply, lines people had given her as their reasons, none of them sounded
sufficient – none of them weresufficient – because it’s wrong, because it’s
against the law, because we can’t, because I’m your sister, because it’s wrong
–always back to that which with nothing to bolster it still demanded another
whyand there was nothing more to offer in reply. He did not, would
notunderstand, and that nonsensical concept of wrongness without reason had
only distressed him to a degree she could not bear to witness, the more because
she barely understood it herself.
When she is forced to really search herself – a thing she wished she would
never have to do – the one truth she always comes down to is that he is and
always will be her baby brother and needs to be protected.
The frustration of not being able to do more when Pierre enters the room tears
at her to the point where she realises she is on the brink of threatening him
for hauling Anatole off. She bites it back – and the urge to follow them. She
has no choice and when neither of them then return she still has no choice but
to smile and smile and be nice to her guests, anxiety shooting through her all
the while whilst she waits for them to leave. She smiles and smiles until
everyone is gone and she can stop, though she feels happier – or more relieved
at least – with them gone than she did with them here. As soon as the door is
closed the smile drops from her face like an overly heavy cloak and she walks
quickly, looking in each room for either or both of them.
Pierre is nowhere to be found, and she finds herself relieved; it is not like
she really wants to see him anyway. Anatole – finally – is in her room,
standing near the bed with his back to the door, but she can tell from the way
that he stands that he is distressed by something. He seems to have his face
buried in one of her dressing gowns, squeezing it tightly between his hands. He
drops it when he hears the door, looking around surprisingly guiltily.
“What’s the matter?” she asks, her voice betraying too much anxiety. She
realises her abilities to repress have been frayed by the hours of smiling –
“What happened? Where’s Pierre? What are you doing?”
“I –” his forehead crumples down the centre, the same little furrow appearing
that he has had since he was two and only just learning how to use it to get
everything his own way. He is not using it this time and it has always stabbed
her to the heart every time he makes that face for real. She wonders if it
partly because of this that he always looks so cheerful, even, sometimes, when
he isn’t – “I have to leave Moscow.”
“When?”
“Now,” he spits out a little broken laugh – “Immediately.” He sits down on the
side of her bed – “Your husband – ” he takes a deep breath – “Is insane. Do you
know he threatened me?”
“He does that.”
“He tried to kill me with a paperweight!”
“At least it wasn’t a table.”
Anatole’s face darkens; he has never forgiven Pierre for that. At the time he
had been so angry he had started insisting on duelling him, until she had
pointed out that it was duelling that started the whole problem they were in
back then anyway. For her sake, he had managed to restrain himself, but she had
never seen his face so dark as when she first came to him with that news. The
reminder however, is too much just now, and his face crumples. He makes a
curious gesture that she realises would be him reaching out to her for a hug if
he thought it would be alright to do so.
She feels herself like water, running into his arms and he is the sea always
calling her. He clutches her around the waist, pressing his head into her
thigh. She shakes her head, cradling his; such a child, she thinks, murmuring
gently that it is alright, it will all be alright.
“Now come on,” she says, putting herself up on to the bed, leaning into the
pillows, letting him all but crawl into her lap, feeling his face damp against
her chest – “What’s this about? Not just the Rostova girl surely? So you’ll go
to Petersburg, it doesn’t matter, I’ll follow as soon as I can, you know I
will, there’s always a reason.”
She comforts herself with this, knowing it is true. The whole of her married
life there have always been reasons. Reasons for Pierre to be absent. Reasons
to accidentallyturn up wherever Anatole happens to be, reasons for him to have
to live with them. Always so many perfectly acceptable reasons. After all, they
are family.
“But I feel like –” Anatole is nibbling his tongue in a concentration of alien
thought – “No, it sounds stupid. But I feel like something bad is going to
happen.”
“That’s silly,” she says, automatically, though it chills her to hear him echo,
seemingly, the feeling she had the night she saw the comet – “Silly,” she
echoes herself, but she holds him a little bit tighter, kisses the top of his
head. He kisses back, wherever his lips can reach, between her breasts, against
her collar bones, trailing kisses messily, increasingly intently up her neck.
“No –” she groans, trying to push his head away, but he is like a persistent
pony, pushing against her, lips upon her neck, brushing the edge of her ear,
greedy and painfully needy – “No we can’t, not now – you’re in enough trouble
already –”
It is the wrong thing to say, she realises. Nothing ever makes Anatole more
intent on a course of action than being told no.But then of course she knows
that, so it must have been the thing she wanted to say all along. She is
frightened tonight; suddenly the lacquer of the world has started to crack and
peel off and all of the things they fight so hard not to say and not to do are
threatening to slip through that hole in the sky.
“Don’t nome,” he murmurs into her throat, lips vibrating against her skin, his
hand sliding inside her dress, finding her bare skin, pulling the silk away
from her shoulders, kissing her shoulders, burying his face in them as though
he would like to drown there – “Give me this, I need you, sister please, before
I go.”
She wants to laugh it all off like she usually does, to point out that this is
not the end of the world, that it is not as though this is the last time they
will see each other, but somehow, today it feels like a lie and she cannot say
it. She does not want him to stop anyway. For once, just for once, she unlocks
her heart, ready to take the inevitable rush of pain.
“I love you,” he whispers, lips almost against her and she can feel him
shuddering from the truth of it and there it is, the pain flooding in and she
wants to say what she always says when the words slip out like bullets – no no,
don’t, we don’t say that, we don’t, not that –because it hurts too much and it
twists in the heart and will not leave. She does not say those things, she
closes her eyes, wants to say them, hears herself say instead–
“Yes, I love you, you know I love you.” He kisses her then like a kiss in a
dream, like the kiss at the end of the fairy tale, heady and full of spiralling
scents, too hard, too hot, too desperate.
“I’ve always loved you –” it is like a song they have not sung in years but
both remember the words and every note, like a song from childhood, a memory
and a rarely to be repeated pleasure – “there was never anyone else, you are –”
“Everything –” she breathes it out in a long shuddering breath and her hands
have parted his dishevelled clothes and he slides inside her, and she is water,
parting and heaving and they are determined to speak now after so long –
“You fit me so perfectly.”
“You were made to take me. I was made to be inside you.”
“We were made to be like this,” and her arms, her legs, all her limbs around
him and her head in the crook of his neck, his head in the hollow of her neck
and shoulder and they could not be any closer – “I don’t want to be any further
away, if the whole world came in now they couldn’t tear us apart.”
“They won’t, they won’t, not ever.”
It is the only thing that is half a lie; they remember of course, they remember
making these promises years ago. But the world did come in and has been tearing
away ever since. It does not matter now, their oft repeated lie is suddenly
true – it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, none of it matters.She comes
crying, face wet, his face wet on her shoulder, with her and shaking until
breaking point with the intensity of it.
They do not fall apart, do not even roll over onto their backs to breathe; they
take the shuddering shivery breathlessness and cling to each other, tiny in the
middle of the large bed.
“Don’t say goodbye,” she says, not looking at him.
“I never do” he answers the same.
Don’t say goodbye, don’t say I love you, break bad news with a smile on the
lips and don’t care about it, don’t ever care about any of it.They have lived
by these rules so long now, it feels like the coldest kind of nakedness to have
broken so many of them now.
“It’s not like we’ll never see each other again,” she says and it is the last
thing she says before he leaves.
She lies in bed for a long time later on her own, the sky darkening outside.
She thinks about the bet and how she had said it was a winning scenario either
way. It feels just now as though really, both of them have lost. Later she goes
to the window and searches the sky for the comet again, but cannot find it. She
closes her eyes on the dark of the sky and remembers another world, a childish
game that is better than reality. For once there was a strange land full of
strange beasts and beautiful flowers, no two of which were ever alike except
them. Her world is a jewel, a place to live in behind her eyes, a place where
that unformed ridiculous wrongcannot exist and they will never be separated.
She glares up at the sky in defiance, her world glittering out of her eyes.
And the sky looks back, slashed silver from side to side.
__x__
***** Anatole, August 1812 *****
Anatole, August 1812
 
“Supposing you died tomorrow.”
Anatole blinks, firelight crackles and wood smoke smarts in his eyes. He had
been smiling vaguely to himself; staring, not really seeing, into the fire, and
sipping something pungent out of Dolokhov’s flask, trying to decide whether he
liked it or not. He had been enjoying the sounds of the camp – muted talking
around the fires and from in tents, the sounds of men and the night time,
crackling wood and soft footfalls in the dark. He had been enjoying the feel
and perhaps the taste of the drink, the warmth of the fire and Dolokhov’s
hunched presence beside him.
“Eh?” he looks up, feeling warm and soft inside, curiously safe, smiling at
Dolokhov benignly – “What’s that?”
Dolokhov has a thoughtful look, hands clasped between his knees as he watches
the fire and Anatole, his thoughts perhaps more understandable to the former
than the latter for Anatole can love until he bursts but is not sure he will
ever understand even the people closest to him. He appears to have been
thinking so intently.
“It’s going to be big, this –” Dolokhov gestures not quite as expansively as
his statement would seem to warrant.
“Did you never wonder that you might not live past tomorrow?”
Anatole’s forehead falls into a furrow. It seems like a strange, gloomy thing
to ask or to have even been wondering. He cannot see its connection to
anything.
“No,” he says, wide eyed and innocent of thought – “No, never – goodness, do
you?”
Dolokhov shrugs, a gesture Anatole at least knows by now means he has been
thinking about it more deeply than he would like to let on. He looks at Anatole
steadily, both their eyes black in this light, with flame dancing inside.
“I used to think about it,” he says slowly – “Just about every day, I thought –
what if I don’t wake up tomorrow? Sometimes, when I was a boy I thought – maybe
I’d freeze overnight and never wake up for cold. Then I thought about the
people I’d leave behind, what they would do without me. There wasn’t a choice
about it – I had to live for them. Now I think – there’s still no choice, live
or die, it’s all the same to someone – perhaps, I don’t know.”
“I never thought about it,” Anatole looks at him wonderingly – “Life is so much
fun – I used to say that to Helene.” He smiles, turning his head for the
umpteenth time – whichever angle one puts oneself at part of the face gets too
warm from the fire, he bats away the smoke as it gusts suddenly towards him,
tiny pieces of charcoal and ember flicking up at him on the lazy late summer
air.
“She always told me I didn’t think about the future enough and she was probably
right – but then I figured if I didn’t think about the future I wouldn’t be
able to worry about it either. I always thought she worried too much and
where’s the sense in that? If I was to spend all my time fretting about what
might happen I wouldn’t be enjoying the thing that is happening. And what’s
that for, eh? Why spoil things when they’re good, there’s nothing wrong until
there’s something wrong and then – ” he shrugs – “Well it always turns out well
enough one way or the other doesn’t it?”
Dolokhov looks at him in a way Anatole cannot quite fathom, but he thinks it
looks fond – well, he cannot imagine the people he loves being anything else
towards him. Then Dolokhov laughs, a short bark from his chest that makes him
seem to shrug with it.
“Yes, I should have known you’d say that. You have a gift for happiness; I
never saw it in anyone else. I can’t ever imagine you sad for long.”
“I don’t see the point of it,” he shrugs – “As long as I have you and Helene –
what’s to worry about?”
“You worry more for our lives than for your own?”
“If I was dead I’d be dead – I don’t suppose I’d know, but if you weren’t here,
or Helene –” he pauses and bites his lip – “I couldn’t imagine a world without
her. She’s been there since I was born. Why are we talking about such sad,
silly things, eh?”
Dolokhov sits up straighter; somehow he looks more relaxed like this than when
he was slouching forwards.
“No, you’re right of course. Why spend what could be the last night of our
lives thinking about it being the last? What would you think about instead?”
“You mean – if I had to make the most of the last time we had thinking about
the best times we had?”
“If you like.”
“I’d remember the time we spent in Budapest, just the three of us. I used to
pretend we were the only three people in the world. Perhaps it couldn’t have
lasted forever and I dolike other people and other places – but if I’d had to
choose a time and stay like that forever it would have been then. I remember
the sound of the door to our apartment – we’d be in the bedroom in the early
afternoon and I’d hear you come in and the door would bash softly against some
bottles on the floor and I knew it was your tread and I wondered if you’d come
join us in bed or wait in the next room until we came out.”
“You always smiled to see me as though you never had before.”
“I was always pleased to see you. I remember the time we walked up the hill,
all three of us, I remember your voice and the way that she laughed but I don’t
remember what any of us said, just that I was happy. We were all happy. If I
had to live in memory forever I think I’d live there. You?”
“Perhaps. Or I’d live in an eternal morning over breakfast, with you just come
in from riding going on about something you’d seen, smelling of horses and
outdoors, more awake than any of us, Helene still half asleep mumbling how can
you be so lively at such an hour, she’d smell like sleepiness and coffee –”
“And custard,” Anatole nods, grinning, Dolokhov laughs –
“Custard?”
“I wanted to say sugar – I knew it would sound better, custard doesn’t sound
romantic, does it? But it’s the closest I can get – a – a specific kind of
sweetness. I can’t live in memory, Fedya, the present is always too – here.
Fire smells and warmth and grass and insects murmuring behind the voices all
around us. I’ll remember tonight and like it too, I think.”
“You like everything.”
“Yes, yes why not – not everyonethough.”
“Oh? Who have you ever hated?”
“I didn’t say I’d ever hated anyone – I just don’t likeeveryone.” He thinks for
a few minutes – “Father perhaps, now and then, and when I was little I thought
I hated Hyppolite –” he laughs – “When I was little sometimes I thought I hated
Helene, when we’d had a fight and she was right about it. But that was silly. I
never hated anyone.”
“No? What about Pierre?”
Anatole shrugs widely, suddenly benign, even magnanimous –
“What about Pierre. I don’t hate him, not really, he was my friend. He still
would have been if not for papa. It’s not his fault I suppose. Besides, he’s
too much of an idiot to hate.”
Anatole pokes the fire with a stick, pushing the logs down into the embers; it
is dying down now and all around them  the sounds of camp are quietening as the
last of the men but them head into their tents. Anatole shifts across the large
log they are using as a bench until he is leaning against Dolokhov, sleepy and
happy and utterly unwilling to follow the example. Dolokhov makes him think of
a rock, a warm rock, tethering him to the earth before he floats away on his
own flippancy. Dolokhov smiles, shifting, letting Anatole all but lie across
the log, his head against his chest. Anatole makes a little grunting noise of
satisfaction, putting Dolokhov’s arms around him, using him and the coat he is
wearing as his own blanket. They sit there for a long time not speaking,
Anatole smiling to himself, listening to Dolokhov’s heartbeat. It feels like a
secret, that gentle thumping sound, as though this is the whole pulse of the
world. It makes him feel connected to everything and only from feeling so
grounded can he speak out loud the flights of fantasy he has only ever shared
with Helene.
“When I was little,” he says, dreamily into the dark and the comforting arms of
that heartbeat – “We made up a world – something – oh you know, right out of
fantasy, nonsense. But it was such pretty nonsense, so beautiful. A silly thing
I suppose, but we spent hoursthere – creating it I mean, colouring it all in,
adding trees and flowers, once I even drew a map. It was like travelling or – I
don’t know – art perhaps – all those things all at once. We invented the
places, describing them as though we had really been there, sometimes as though
we were there at the time. We had our own castle there, a cave made out of ice,
rivers and forests and only the two of us ever allowed to go there. There were
dragons, horses – all that sort of thing. We worked out all the shapes and
colours of things until we knew them as well as anything in the real world. If
either of us disagreed we’d tell each other we were remembering it wrong, not
that we werewrong, you know? We would talk about the journeys we had had there
like you would talk about your own adventures – like they were real – and they
were in a way -  do you – do you know what I mean at all?”
Dolokhov nods slowly, looking at Anatole with eyes that shine in the firelight.
“I do,” he says and his voice sounds rough, from the smoke Anatole supposes.
“I know it sounds silly,” he presses, reaching for something, not even fully
sure why he feels this need to describe and explain  - “but I still go there in
my head sometimes, when it’s late and I’m alone or just waking up sometimes.
Helene said when she got married, she said that I could always find her there
when she wasn’t close enough in the real world. And I always can. It’s easy to
picture. I know she’ll be waiting at a castle window for me, or in the meadow
where we first started out, she’ll have grass in her skirts and flowers in her
hair and everything will be the way it should be and I think –” Anatole
struggles to express something he suddenly feels might be too big for him – “I
think it’s good to have the back up, I mean I likethis world, this life and
people are always telling me I’m not practical – father gives me that face when
I’ve been having too much fun and says “That’s not real life, Anatole,” but –
have you noticed people only say that when they’re implying that real life is a
bad thing? Or if not a bad thing certainly not as fun as the thing I was doing
to begin with and so why would I want that, eh? I think a world where I can
have fun is better than another kind and so why can’t that be the real one?
Being happy is better than anything else and so –” he sighs in satisfaction at
his own conclusion – “So I think I’ll take two. Two worlds.” He nods, pleased
with himself and his logic.
Dolokhov laughs kindly and squeezes Anatole in a tight, rough hug. Anatole
smiles; he feels cherished, like a treasure.
“You do understand what I mean, don’t you?”
“I do” Dolokhov nods, Anatole feels his chin on the top of his head – “But I
don’t know why you’re telling me.”
“Well because –” Anatole frowns, not knowing it himself until he says it –
“Because I didn’t want another world – not even mine and Helene’s – that I
didn’t think you could be a part of too and if you know about it, then maybe –
if I need to – I can always find you there as well.”
Dolokhov laughs softly, but there is an odd sound in it as though he might just
as easily cry.
“Dear boy,” he murmurs. “You know, it’s almost dawn. We should get some sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep,” Anatole pouts. Dolokhov sighs, how many times has he
heard this before?
“Well I don’t! It’s such a beautiful night and I like the – the way it feels.
It doesn’t feel like a war. It’s just nice, being warm and safe and here with
you.”
“I think you might define safe differently from other people, dear.”
“Well but I feel it,” he insists, burrowing down comfortably against Dolokhov
on their log, taking up at least three quarters of it. He looks up at the stars
for a while in silence, not really thinking, just feeling the warm and cold of
the night air on his face and hearing that reassuring heartbeat in his ears.
“Fedya?” he says eventually, sleepily now.
“Hmm?”
“I love you.” He feels Dolokhov’s throat as he swallows hard.
“I mean –” he goes on – “I love everything, or anyway I like everything – but
you and Helene – you’re the only two people I really, reallylove. It’s like
you’re – me –you know? And I’m me too – we’re all –” he yawns, loudly,
contentedly – “Me.”
Dolokhov shakes his head tolerantly and it seems to Anatole that he feels
happy.He is glad. He wonders what he is thinking but not for very long because
after all he falls asleep, face turned to the stars, lulled by the gentle thump
thumpof the heart.
__x__
 
Well I made my beta cry....:-)
***** Hélène, September 1812 *****
 
Trigger warnings: Suicide and Tokophobia.
 
Hélène, September 1812
 
“Darling, I know you’re bored but is this not just a little bit extreme? Just
the tiniest bit?”
“Bilibin don’t be tedious,” Hélène groans, smiling wearily. “Not you. I’ve had
just about everybody’s tediousness but yours.”
She picks at a thread in a cushion, pulling a creamy coloured scar through the
red brocade, feeling the pattern of it without really seeing it, only realising
later that she has all but destroyed it. He is right, she supposes, but she
still just feels bored nonetheless, uninterested in her own drama. Whilst all
of society whispers at her scandals and intrigues – even her mother has deigned
to be shocked enough to come and speak to her about it, wonders will never
cease – she seems to find herself the only one to remain tiredly disinterested
by it all. She feels more like a spectator of the play in which she is the star
than the principal player herself. It is a tedious play, she thinks, fast
becoming a farce. The parasitic lifeform she has still not managed to shift is
making her angrier by the day.
“Be serious now darling, just for a moment.”
“Really Bilibin, must we? You know how I count on you to be otherwise.”
She uses her public voice, languid and drawn, a musical lazy oboe tone as
opposed to the fluting lilt of natural speech that she reserves for so few.
Bilibin is a strange one; a man she has no chance, wish or expectation of
sleeping with and with whom she can therefore be far more herself than with
other men. She learned early in life that female friends were neither an option
nor a desire for her. Male friendsare, if she is using the term honestly,
almost as few and far between – which is to say friendships are not really
something she cultivates in any kind of honesty.
And so, with Anatole and Dolokhov both gone these two months or more Bilibin is
the closest to someone she can talk to on any kind of half way genuine level;
and they only even manage to maintain this level of confidentiality – a level
that is nearly but not quite intimacy – by talking about personal matters only
in the same tone in which they might talk about the weather.
“Well then, what is it?”
“Are you quite well?”
“Whatever do you mean? I do hope you’re not implying I look otherwise.”
“God forbid. Merely asking. I’d hate to see you brought down with that newfound
sense of catholic guilt.”
She slaps him lightly on the back of the hand, repressing a smirk; nobody else
has dared poke fun at her conversion and she would argue it genuinely with
anyone else if they did.
“I’m fine,” she says lightly “I’m always fine.”
Actually, she reflects later when she is alone, she was overwhelmed that anyone
would ask, at the same time as being concerned that anything to the contrary is
obvious. She almost wishes she could have told the truth but that would have
been ridiculous.
The truth is – she tells it to the mirror, unable to avoid seeing the signs of
weariness now that she knows someone else has spotted them – the truth is she
does not feel good at all. It is partly the medicine, she is sure – if that is
the right word for it – and partly her condition which she hates as it is. She
feels invaded, and at a time where she does not need the added irritation. She
is not sure why it is proving so difficult this time; it is not as though she
has not got herself out of similar situations before and it is largely her
dread that this time she will be unlucky that has motivated her two potential
new marriages, as if she was not already tired of the one she had. Reflecting
on it all is like picking up a book she has no interest in reading. Her
existence, always on some kind of hiatus when Anatole and Dolokhov are away
with the army, feels more in limbo than ever. She pushes it all from her mind,
watching herself brush her hair, change into her dressing gown, always watching
her reflection watching her from the mirror.
She is engaged heavily in all of this negation of thought when a maid servant
knocks on the door timidly announcing that her father wishes to see her.
“Now?” she frowns, scowling. “At this hour? Tell him I’ll speak with him
tomorrow.”
“If you please my lady, he says it’s urgent.”
She nods, sighing softly, groaning loudly when the maid has left, pushing her
chair angrily aside and tying her dressing gown tight enough to hurt, glaring
down at her belly as she does so; that’ll teach you.She goes down to the
drawing room in a quiet, petulant temper, frowning in lack of comprehension at
the unprecedented sight of Hyppolit sat stonily at the table, eyes red as
though he has been crying – though she has never seen such a thing before and
cannot tell. He looks up at her silently when she comes in, with a look that
she swears could be sympathy if it was one he had ever levelled her way before.
Her frown deepens, despite herself; she cannot think of a single reason for him
to look at him like that.
“What is it? Whatever is the matter?” She almost laughs. He flails helplessly,
gesturing their father’s study door.
“I –” he stammer – “You should –” she rolls her eyes and marches past him.
“Papa?” despite her irritation it comes out in a whisper, Hyppolit’s evident
though unusual distress has discomforted her more than she realised – “What’s
going on? What’s the matter with everyone?”
The Prince looks up at her over the paper in his hands with very much the same
look she saw on her brother. He starts to speak but no sound comes out.
“Well for heaven’s sake,” she snaps. “What’s the matterwith everyone?”
Another awkward beat of silence, her father’s mouth moves for too long before
he finally gets any words out –
“It’s Anatole.”
“Anatole?” She echoes, squinting, the same squint, the same furrow in the
forehead that he makes when confused, she knows it, shaking her head gently –
“What about Anatole?” She half smiles, about to add what’s he done now?It is
the only natural question, but something in her father’s face stops her, his
eyes dropping to the paper in his hands – “What’s that?”
“Casualty lists –” his voice sounds far away – “From Borodino.”
“Borodino?” it means nothing to her – nothing more than a memory of a
conversation – another site of conflict with the French, the dates and place
names all run together in her head, never seeming like something genuinely
touching on her life. Her father is holding it out to her limply. She takes it
automatically, confused and frowning –
“Why do I –” the words why would I care?dry up on her tongue, sticking in her
throat as everything starts to make sense, her brain slowly catching up to what
her father is saying to her. She feels dizzy, as though she might faint, throat
dry, head reeling sickly. She gropes for something, anything, an edge, her hand
hitting the back of a chair, using it to hold herself up, wondering why this
feeling as though she might fall. Her eyes flicker around the room which won’t
seem to stop moving, falling onto the paper, scanning the list of names that
seems to go on and on until one alone comes into focus –
Kuragin, Anatole Vasilyevich – death resulting from injury.
“Oh,” she says numbly, watching the paper fall from her hand, following its
slow drift to the floor with her eyes. It seems to her as though the fall goes
on for a long time. There is nothing inside her chest. When she looks down at
her hand she wonders what it is, who it belongs to.
“Hélène –” her father’s voice, like from outside a dream, everything is moving
so slowly, why she wonders, why has the world slowed down? “Hélène, did you –”
“Yes –” she blinks rapidly, shaking the fog from her head – “No –” she smiles,
she is relieved to feel herself smile. “But it’s a mistake –” she laughs a
little, as one would at a joke that is faintly, but only faintly, amusing. She
shrugs. “Of course it’s a mistake, really papa –”
“Hélène –”she feels like a child, his voice is heavy with a sigh, he speaks to
her as sternly as though she is still a child. “Hélène it’s not a mistake. It
arrived with Kutuzov’s dispatch this evening”.
He is making words; it is rather funny she thinks. He sounds so serious. The
words make no sense.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she says, loudly and firmly. “You’re being
ridiculous and I’m going to bed.”
She turns and walks out of the room with her nose in the air, ignoring Hyppolit
on her way.
When she gets to her room she sleeps, almost instantly. She feels exhausted,
not quite sure why.
In the morning her first thought on waking is that there is something wrong in
her world. Her second thought is that she feels sick. As she reaches for a bowl
she thinks this is it, this is the thing that is wrong, this stupid thing in me
still.She sits back, remembers, is sick again until she is dry heaving, nothing
left inside her. She sleeps again, perhaps for an hour. When she finally gets
up she drinks water, dresses, composes herself, watches the mirror carefully as
she fixes her face and hair. He isn’t there.
He isn’t there all that day, not anywhere, or the next.
She is hardly aware of her movements. She finds herself watching her brother
and father nervously, constantly, waiting for them to say something, to take it
back, to admit that it was a joke and a stupid one. But they don’t. When people
call on them all she hears is sympathy and as the days go on it starts to
become clear to her that this is all they are going to hear, that it is not
unfounded, that it was not a joke.
At other times she feels an immense surge of relief like a great wave come to
wash all the wrongness away, all of the fog and the sickness and perplexity –
she will see the back of Hyppolit’s head and smile, on the verge of running to
him, Anatole! on her lips.But he turns and he is not and he turns and he is
not, every time he is not who he should be and she crashes again.
The second evening she lies on her bed and cries, shaking until she feels
bruised with it and no longer aware why she is crying. She dreams sweet dreams
that night and Anatole is with her in all of them and she wakes up and he is
not and it is worse. She stares into the mirror for hours on end, willing her
face to change, willing his ghost to appear beside her, but there is nothing.
After staring for too long she cannot even see her own face.
The next day, or the next – she has lost track of time – it occurs to her that
she has been forgetting to take her medicine and it was supposed to be so
carefully meted out, she remembers being told that. She curses, every curse she
has ever heard under her breath at the thought that after all this she could
end up giving birth as well. She turns the bottle in her hand; it is delicate
brown glass, gleaming amber in the candlelight and after she has taken a  drop
she holds it still, staring at it for a long time before smiling and putting it
down.
She nods when she sets the bottle back down, smiles to herself and retreats to
her writing desk with sudden purpose. After the first two words of her letter
the purpose seems to flee her and she stares down at the two words with a
sudden sense of guilt.
Dearest Fedya,
She stares at them for a long time blankly. She wonders if it is alright to
start a message in so familiar a manner. She has never written to anyone in
such a manner before – except for Anatole. A crazy urge to write to him too
taps maddeningly on the back of her brain. What do I write?she thinks. What the
hell do I write?That sense of guilt comes back; it occurs to her that the
Catholics may be on to something with their confession and absolution. I should
go to my confessorshe thinks, laughing at herself as she thinks it – talk to
him, make it all alright.She remembers that for it to work she has to feel bad
for the thing she has done. She does not feel bad, not for this, not for
loving, even if it kills her. It has killed her. She owes god nothing – but
Dolokhov – Dolokhov she does feel bad towards, and in the end it is guilt that
gives her the start to her goodbye –
I’m sorry –she begins.
The little brown bottle rolls, tickling across the floor, bumping hollowly
against a chair leg, all the bright colour and the amber gleaming gone and she
curls into the middle of her bed which feels far too big for her, heady and
flying to begin with, reaching for his hand.
I’m coming,she thinks – coming to meet you, you could at least take my hand.But
she gets nothing in return. She is flying now, low above a meadow in the fading
summer light, and the long grasses are gold and red and as she drops down
softly more and more blue and pink and silver because they said that they could
be and it is their world to paint in any colour that they wish.
 He is here. Her heart sings and takes wing because she knew that he would be,
down there beside the stream, on a rock under the waterfall, and down on the
bank a single drop of water hangs from a leaf and glints in the light of seven
rainbow suns before it falls; and the slow drawn falling of that diamond water
is a steady tinkling drip alongside the chuckling song of the stream. It is
peaceful here and even Anatole behaves, catching her when she comes down to
earth, laughing as they roll over in the grass together and the sun and the
water still laughing together with them.
It is agony, like her insides are being torn apart, and she thinks god how can
this be when I am torn already?but metaphors do not change the physical and she
is doubled over biting her lips and almost screaming, not wanting to, not
wanting anyone to come and helpor saveher. She is doing that herself. For a
moment she thinks maybe I made a mistakeas she clutches and reaches in the
bedsheets for a hand that is not there. She remembers the first time he went
away and the slow feeling of tearing inside her that has sped up now too much
for her to heal it with thought or with the knowledge that this is not forever,
that he will be back. She remembers their last night before he left and what
she nearly said and she opens her mouth to repeat herself but the sound will
not come out –
If we never said goodbye you never really left.
And she wishes hard but she does not know for what.
And the sky looks down and does not care.
__x__
 
Well I made myself sad! Just to continue on the theme of sad: we are gonna get
to hear the whole of Helene’s letter to Dolokhov in the next chapter! And
finally catch up on Dolokhov’s reactions to all of these events. :-)
On a lighter note, Bilibin is Helene’s GBF and you can’t tell me otherwise. :-)
***** Dolokhov, October 1812 *****
 
 
Dolokhov, October 1812
 
Somehow, he thinks, somehow once again I appear to have become a legend. Even
the men on his own side do not seem to be sure if they admire him or if they
ought not to be utterly terrified of him. On account of either, or both, they
maintain a safe distance, even when they are apparently delighting in his
presence. Good. It is good this way. How far he has come in the (how do I tell
her) eyes of the world.
He keeps hearing this; in how much esteem he is regarded. There is a definite
pride to be taken in it, and he does. He makes it his business to stay proud,
aloof – untouchable perhaps. He is not sure when it was he moved beyond a state
of pure anger (maybe she knows, dear god, how is she?) but it feels like a long
time ago.
It feels as though there has never been any other life; never any existence
beyond this cold white world. The rest was all a dream. Cold is good for him
now, he can do cold and when the early mornings catch him out he finds himself
thinking of coursehow could the world be anything other than white now all the
colour has been leached out of it. Who knew? Who knew, dear boy –he says it to
the blank white morning sky, so far and so heavy – who knew you were all the
brightness I needed? Who knew your going could leave the world so cold and
empty and white. That you, in your silliness and sweetness, your vast
selfishness and your careless ceaseless enthusiasm for life could leave the
world so numb and void.Enthusiasm for life. He will not cry. He does not cry.
Killing is the sweetest thing there is. He does it with a fierceness nobody
recognises as numbness.
“Sometimes it seems unfair, doesn’t it?” Denisov says one night, ponderously
staring into the camp fire’s flickering light – “Picking them off like this
when we’re already retreating?”
Dolokhov grunts, more or less non-comitally but there is enough of a negative
in the tone of it for Denisov to shrug –
“No,” he nods in thoughtful agreement – “No I suppose not. Don’t you want
another log on that, eh?”
Dolokhov turns his back on the embers.
“Let it die,” he says. Let it die. These faint flames are pointless now that
the sun has gone out.
People know better than to offer up unsolicited conversation. He would rather
not sit around a fire, enjoying its warmth and talking as though with friends.
He would rather never do that at all, no, not ever again. Nothing hurts more
than the memory of happiness, nothing at all. Try as he might he remembers
sitting up all night, watching the fire dim down and the sun come up, a warm
weight against his chest and another, just as sweet, beating against his ribs.
Anatole had said again and again that he could not sleep and would not sleep
but in the end it was Dolokhov who had not closed his eyes all of that short
tender night, that lazy I love youhumming in his chest and his soul swelling
with the promise he had made to Helene. Look after him,she had said Look after
my little brother Fedya, someone has to –and he had sworn to himself silently
that night, dearest I will look after you forever.
How very brief, how fleeting forever had turned out to be.
How strange that he could keep a promise to himself and his family to look
after them and keep it his whole life but break the same promise made to his
second family only months later.
I have to stay alive for them– he remembers saying this to Nikolai a hundred
years ago. It had always been true; it still is true, only now where it used to
be inspiring it feels like a weight around his neck. He wears it in silence.
It has been one of the better days. Their successes against the French have by
far outweighed their failures and the world has gained the only colour it ever
does these days; the splash of bright blood across the snow. He lives for that,
as much as for anything now; that shocking spray of red, fading too quickly
into pink and then like everything – into nothing.
And so he is smiling crookedly at something Denisov has said in the late
afternoon, the sky turning grey, when the letters come. He is mildly surprised
to have anything, let alone two in one day, but he does little more than raise
an eyebrow and put them away until the evening.
When he is alone later he sits down on his bedroll and pulls the letters out,
holding them for a moment in his hand as though weighing them. After
deliberating for too long he opens the smaller one first and finds the envelope
to contain his life handed back to him. It is from a hospital just outside
Moscow and writes to bring him news that they believe he has been misinformed
in the chaos following Borodino and that the man he had been asking after,
Prince Anatole Kuragin, is alive and in good hands after his injury on the
field. He stares at the letter for a long time, unable to comprehend it, too
shocked by the news to fully recognise the rising delight he feels for what it
is. He wonders what the injury is, supposes they assume that he knows, that he
was there. But he did not see what happened, there was only so far they could
stay side by side and when the world blew up around them he lost Anatole in the
smoke. He is finally starting to feel his chest open up in a genuine breath of
relief when he opens the second letter.
Dearest Fedya,
I’m sorry –
Her writing is a mess. He scowls; he has seen her writing before, it does not
look like this, as though she was panicking when she wrote it, and she has
never addressed him that way before, nor apologised for anything in her life. A
black feeling of dread rushes up his chest, chasing out the hope that had just
begun to rise in his throat.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry – I don’t know what I’m writing, I don’t know what to
say. I don’t want to do this, I never thought – no I do, I do want to do this,
what else is there?
Her writing becomes almost illegible. He can picture her too clearly, crying as
she writes it. Putting her pen down in a fury of not knowing how to go on,
pacing the room before she sits back at the desk. She starts again on a new
line.
 I wish I knew what to say, I’ve always known what to say, haven’t I? I prided
myself on being the one who knew what do, how to survive. But I don’t. Not now.
I can’t. I wish I could tell you otherwise but I can’t do this. I can’t. I want
to be able to tell you I can keep going for you, I feel like it ought to be
enough. I love you and I hope – I hope to think that you love me and it feels
good, to love to know or think you know and it’s wrong of me that this cannot
be enough so that’s why I had to write – to say sorry – I don’t think I said
sorry to anyone in my life. But I have to. Because I don’t want you to think
there was anything you could have done. I don’t want you to think that you
weren’t enough but – oh I’m afraid you will anyway and I don’t know how to help
that. Selfish of me. But I’ve always been selfish, we both have, haven’t you
always told us so? Well at least this will be the last selfish thing I can do
even if it is monumental.
I wish – I wish I could be strong enough to stay. If I did it would be for you.
But I suppose sometimes it is the height of bad manners not to know when it is
time to leave and I fear I have already overstayed my welcome. He shouldn’t
have gone before me, it’s not right. He was my baby brother and I was supposed
to look after him. I failed. I thought we were both so strong. I find I keep
being wrong. 
Don’t keep this. Forget the silly things I’ve said here. Don’t remember this.
Remember us as we were in Budapest when I could believe that the three of us
were the only three people in the world. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it?
Remember us hand in hand in hand or in a pile amongst the sheets in the early
afternoon. Remember us alive and whole. Forget this. I wish so much but I
cannot stay when – god what a cliché it is, forgive me but half of me has
already gone and it remains for me only to say -
I love you and goodbye,
H.
Impossible. It seems impossible, first to believe such news can follow so fast
on the heels of the other and impossible too to imagine this note is anything
other than what it is. It has been this and not the other, he realises that he
has been expecting and dreading all this time. He never for a moment imagined
she could be alright alone. They came together didn’t they? Even these two
pieces of horribly mismatched news had to come together; it is sickeningly
fitting at the same time as it is awful.
He thinks about what she said, almost the same as Anatole said to him on that
last night – remember us as we were in Budapest – the only three people in the
world.He did not think about it that much when Anatole said it, it was true,
for once he had been taking the boy’s own advice and enjoying the time that
they had that night. He had not thought, sat at that fire earlier that night,
that he could have felt such happiness at such a time, but in the end he had.
He had been happy enough with his present not to think of a time that Anatole
clearly felt to be at least as sweet. Helene too. Now that she has, for the
millionth and last time, unknowingly echoed her brother almost word for word –
now, hearing those words again he still cannot think about it. He cannot go
back. Not yet. He fears if he goes to the past now he will never come back from
it.
No, he can only think about two things and they are far from any possibility of
good things. He thinks about seeing Anatole again, only the pleasure he might
have felt in such contemplation – the pleasure and delight that was like such a
brief awakening back into life before opening that second letter – it rises and
rises again only to be crushed again and again with that question – how do I
tell him?And a part of him wants to laugh, remembering how often he has
wondered the same thing in reverse ever since Borodino.
He sits in the same position, not moving to rise or lie down all that night.
Helenehe thinks, numbly, and he finds himself blinking more than he should but
he still seems incapable of tears. They were so bright, so dazzling, his world
had turned beneath them as though they were a crystal chandelier, just as
splendid, just as breakable. I thought we were so strong, she said and he
understands her because, in between thinking the opposite and those long
strange tender nights spent almost solely in the grip of the urge to protect
them both from the world - he had thought it too.
 
__x__
***** Dolokhov, 1813 *****
 
Dolokhov, 1813
 
He had let this go on too long. He knew it. but knowing was useless; how could
he – how darehe even tell Anatole what he had to tell him when he was already
fighting so much and doing so well all things considered. And how could he not?
He had considered the practicalities of seeing Anatole again well in advance of
their meeting but he could still barely bring himself to imagine it. He tried
not to imagine Anatole as he had been before either; to void himself both of
memory and expectation. He had expected to find him in a state of utter
dejection and he had been ready for that. The hope and happiness that lit up
Anatole’s face when he saw him was somehow much worse. He had thrown his arm
around Dolokhov’s neck all but crying in happiness as though it had been long
years rather than mere months since they had seen each other. Perhaps to
Anatole it had been. He told him later how differently time passed in hospital,
how it nibbled and dragged at the soul. How he had thought he might go mad or
give up altogether only for the thought of him and Helene. He bit his tongue at
that, as he was learning to do. In the end Dolokhov had had to detach Anatole
gently before the nurses started looking at them strangely. It was when he
heard that Anatole had already been half flirting with them in the last few
days that he knew how well he was recovering, at least in spirit.
They did not talk about anything important or necessary until the time came to
leave and Anatole’s face clouded over at the sight of the chair he had taken so
many pains to find.
“It’s ugly” he pronounced – “Do I have to?”
“Do you want to stay here another few months?”
“God no” Anatole pouted, swivelled round to sit on the edge of the bed. It was
the first time Dolokhov realised that he had seen it. He gave a deep sigh of
thanks for his ability to notreact when necessary. he could see Anatole
watching him with a wary, challenging look, daring him to be disgusted, to be
sad, to dare sympathy. He did none of them and thought he saw Anatole half
smile at his doing so – “Help me” he said. He made it sound like an order
rather than a plea and Dolokhov was glad of it. It felt as though one of the
battles he had been expecting had been cancelled. If it had been him he was not
sure how easily he could have asked for help; he should have known Anatole
would not be the same.
They had agreed to go to Dolokhov’s new house, just on the outskirts of Moscow.
His mother’s was too small and they did not want to trouble her with this,
besides they could have barely got the chair through the door. Also, to his
relief, Anatole did not want to go his father’s or his own home, but then –
“I don’t want her to see me like this” he said – “Not yet.”
Dolokhov closed his eyes briefly, heavily, relief replaced so quickly with that
sinking feeling he was becoming far too familiar with. He wondered if he should
just say it, if this was the best lead he was ever going to get – That’s – not
something you need to worry about at least.It was on the tip of his tongue,
just like her absence was a black hole on the edges of his heart, blurring
everything – and then he could not say it. He could not try to make this
positive. His clouded heart rebelled and feeling how much it hurt him only made
him dread for the thousandth time how hard it would hit Anatole. And so he let
the moment slip by him and it set a precedent for letting the disclosure go
unsaid over and again for longer than it should have gone on.
It was for the best, he told himself, and the argument in favour of this was
more than substantial after all. Anatole was fighting so hard by day and
suffering so badly by night – he could not put this on him too, not yet.
The nightmares at least were something he had prepared himself for. Somewhere
in the midst of everything that had happened Anatole had become afraid of the
dark, afraid to sleep from a fear that he might not wake up. He would wake
repeatedly through the night, shaking and crying, asking what was happening,
why he could not move his legs and the battle all around him still. What he had
not known was that the good dreams would be even worse. Anatole would wake from
those and for a few minutes smile, forgetting what had happened, waking from
dreams of running and moving to stand up, surprised every time and confused as
to why he could not. He was much lower on those days than the days following
nightmares.
But Dolokhov barely left him and over the weeks, that turned into months he saw
Anatole improve by degrees, hopping that he was helping as much as he hoped he
was. Helping included a wild combination of tenderness and bullying often
leading up to the final damning “Fine just don’t then” which always provoked
Anatole to move when nothing else would. He was stubbornly set against trying
to walk if he had to do it with crutches and Dolokhov was forced to encourage
and ignore him by turns, turning a blind eye to his tantrums and enthusiastic
praise to his moments of positivity.
It would have been easier, he knew, if Anatole’s largest motivational factor
towards recuperation had not been Helene. Here Dolokhov remained at an absolute
loss how participate. He could not bring himself to say do it for herwhich
might have been the most winning possible argument but he could not bear to
crush the only enthusiasm Anatole seemed to be able to muster and tell him the
truth. And the more optimistic Anatole became the more he didtalk about her.
“I should write to her don’t you think?” he said – “She must be so worried, we
should at least let her know I’m safe here with you – I mean what if she thinks
otherwise? What if she thinks I’m dead?” he laughed, Dolokhov winced, mumbling
that he had already written, hatingthe lie, hating everything other than
Anatole’s being alive when he had expected the worst. he could not make Anatole
stop, he never couldmake Anatole stop talking when he wanted to talk and he
wanted to talk about her.Dolokhov had thought this was the hardest thing from
the first day he had met the boy, that he could never be alone with him because
he would always bring her up. He remembered with crashing guilt how much he had
wished, before he knew her, that she had not existed, however foolish such
jealousy had been. He had never imagined he could have mourned her like this or
been stuck as well between mourning and Anatole’s painfully misdirected
enthusiasm.
“Do you think she’ll mind?” he would chatter away, oblivious to Dolokhov’s pale
and strained expression – “She used to say it hurt her if I as much as cut
myself – maybe she’ll hate it. maybe she won’t want to look at me what do you
think?” Dolokhov smiled tightly, wishing he could at least not ask him
questions – “Maybe she’ll be alright if she knows I’m alright, Dolokhov - I
have to be alright. Throw me that crutch, I’m going to try again!”
Dolokhov could only smile at him, weary and sad, wishing he could simply be
annoyed that Anatole once again seemed to think more of her when she was not
there than himself when he was. But he could not be that petty any more, not
for the world.
“I can’t wait to see her again!” Anatole would babble, his eyes big with
excitement – “Maybe we should have gone back straight away eh? No, better to
get better first. Oh but I wish she was here! It’s been so long! Do you
remember the last time we were all together Fedya? It feels like so long ago –
I can’t wait for that to happen again. Everything only feels right when we’re
all of us together. I never thought it would be this long.I wish I’d said
goodbye to her more properly, I’m sure I didn’t. Do you think she misses me?”
On and on until Dolokhov could hear himself screaming at Anatole to shut up in
his head, but he never did it. And as if this was not enough, Anatole would
then brew plans for the future with more conviction and excitement almost than
Dolokhov had seen before.
“It’s going to be different this time” he would say – “I thought about it so
hard in the first days – after Borodino you know when everything was still so
awful – I’ve been doing things all wrong before. Like when we came home after
Budapest, we should never have come home. I’ll tell Helene, she’ll realise. We
could run away together and stay that way this time. There’s no point in
wasting time with anything other than happiness is there? And you and Helene –
you’re what makes me happy.”
If Helene had been alive it might have been everything he had wanted to hear.
Eventually putting it off became more and more awkward and Anatole, as he had
feared he might but refused to believe, was becoming fractious, asking
repeatedly when they would see Helene and finally insisting on going to her
right nowuntil, on the border or an enormous row he said Anatole’s name very
calmly, steadily.
“Anatole”
Anatole was not listening. Still calm but just a little louder –
“Anatole she’s dead” he looks down at the floor, head heavy – “Helene is dead”.
he can hear the rush of silence, thunderously loud in his ears. Well it was
done, it was out. So many months spent imagining how it would sound, trying to
think of a better way to say dead.There was no better way to say it, but
hearing it out loud feels somehow like déjà vu. It feels as though he is the
one hearing the news for the first time and felt alarmingly as though he might
finally cry.
Anatole, to his surprise and utter horror, having stared at him for a long
silent moment , started to laugh, a little nervously with too many teeth in it.
“That’s –” he scowls – “That’s really not all that funny Fedya.”
“I’m not joking” he swallows  a curse in his throat. his eyes are stinging.
Anatole looks at him long and hard – looks at him for too long, seeing the
truth in his face. When he finds it his face goes grey, washed out and sinking
in on itself.
“No” he says quietly.
“Yes” he has never felt more awkward – “I’m sorry.” He winches at the addition
that sounds so awful – as though that could possibly be enough.
“I don’t know –” Anatole begins. Dolokhov would spend the next few months
trying to guess what he had wanted to say, taking this start at a sentence as
the only explanation for what happened afterwards that he had.
“What happened” Anatole says with barely even the inflection of a question in
his voice. His voice sounds like something that has crawled up out of a grave.
Dolokhov tells him all of it as briefly as he can.
“You’ll hear a different story from everyone else of course” he says “But it’s
the truth. She wrote to me just before she –she would have written to you she
said but –”
“But I was dead” Anatole says in a voice that implies the sudden ridiculousness
of his being otherwise – “I was dead” he repeats – “That’s why – isn’t it?”
Dolokhov closes his eyes, sure he can hear the cracking sound in his chest;
“Yes darling boy, that’s why.”
Anatole nods and sits very still, barely blinking.
“Anatole?” Dolokhov is more alarmed by this than by any other possible
reaction. Anatole does not react – “Anatole?”.
But Anatole is gone. He does not speak, does not even seem to hear and nothing
Dolokhov can do or say can change it.
__x__
 
 
Guys I'm so sorry, I mangled the posting and THIS is meant to be Chapter 32 not
what I originally posted which was meant to be Chapter 33! Thanks heaps
to Alleyskywalker for pointing this out to me. What a tit I am, it's cause I
was tired at time of posting and got confused because they're both "Dolokhov
1813" :-)
***** Dolokhov 1813 *****
Dolokhov, 1813
 
Anatole’s continued silence is frightening. Dolokhov had not thought, of all
the things that could shake him, that silence could prove without a doubt to be
the most shattering, the most unbeatable of foes.
But it goes beyond a simple inability to speak. It is a stillness; a lack of
response that strikes Dolokhov as, above everything, so utterly unlike Anatole.
Some days he is not sure Anatole even hears him. Most days he just sits, no
longer willing to try and walk let alone talk, just sits and stares at nothing.
Dolokhov finds himself having to put Anatole in different places just for a
change of scene and Anatole, to his horror, simply lets himself be moved. He
does not eat without coaxing, the only thing he will willingly do is sleep, and
then he does that so willingly that many mornings Dolokhov finds it hard to
wake him. These are the only times Anatole will give him something like a
response, grunting an objection and burrowing his head beneath the sheets,
batting at him feebly when he tries to make him sit up. This makes him all the
less likely to want to leave him alone.
He tries to imagine what can be going on inside that head; that head that he
used to joke contained so little and now truly seems to contain nothing at all,
not even thought. He cannot imagine it, cannot fathom the loss. Loss for him
has always been a part of life- he has never had expectations, only
aspirations. Anatole, if anything, has always been the other way round. He
understands the sadness of losing someone, he is still mourning Helene himself,
but he has not lost himself through losing her, not like Anatole seems to have
done. He tries to understand and cannot. Anatole’s eyes slide off things if
they ever focus for a second at all. Sometimes he fancies Anatole looks at him
when he speaks, that when their eyes meet there is contact there, sometimes, on
the best of days he sees something like recognition in those eyes. Most days he
finds nothing at all.
He tries everything in cycles to break him out of it, to bring him back. He
wonders where he is, wonders if Anatole even knows. He thinks he understands,
at least to some degree that the blow was too much, that Anatole, unable even
to fathom simple and smaller pieces of bad news, has simply vacated the
premises of himself in the face of something that is far too big for him to
think or even feel his way around. He has not even cried; he would have been
prepared for that, expected it even. He has not cried himself; this does not
make him worry less about Anatole.
He tries everything to bring him back, every possible method of obtaining every
possible reaction. He talks gently, talks about everything he can think of,
avoids speaking of Helene, will only speak of Helene. He is gentle beyond
belief, coaxing, furious, raging and verbally vicious by turns. Nothing. At one
point he goes so far as to contact Prince Vasily. The Prince’s visit is brief
and unsuccessful, awkward and without even stirring a flicker in Anatole’s
face. The Prince returns to Petersburg and does not say anything to alter the
general consensus that his son is dead.
The only time in all of that long half a year that Dolokhov gets anything from
Anatole at all is one cold day in March after two months of nothing when he
announces, gently, almost on his way out the door – because he has been trying
an offhand approach of late in the hope of catching Anatole out, almost – that
he is going to cemetery and would Anatole like to join him. He has been doing
this every time he goes out, in less and less hope that Anatole will be moved
by it but this time he looks up. He turns his head to look at him and initially
just frowns as though he has been far away and cannot quite remember what is
happening.
“I’m going to visit her grave,” Dolokhov repeats – “Do you want to come?”
Anatole frowns more deeply and for a long moment before the frown clears and he
nods minutely. Dolokhov fights the urge to express his delight, and after all
he cannot be thatpleased when the cause is such a grim one, and he helps
Anatole into the carriage he had called, trying not to think too deeply how
this is the first time he has got him out the house.
The sky is grey when they get out of the carriage, Anatole leaning partly on
crutches, partly on Dolokhov, face scrunched up as though he has forgotten the
sensation of wind. It is breezy up here and Dolokhov imagines it must feel
strange against the skin after so long indoors. Somehow, slowly they cross over
the grass to the grave. Anatole’s eyes follow the flowers in Dolokhov’s hand
intently, meadow flowers, larkspur and poppies, fire weed and baby’s breath,
the colourful jumble of favourites he always knew she liked but never really
understood why; they were so colourful, so clashing, so unlike her usual
refined and elegant preferences. But they had always made her smile. Anatole
strokes the petals before Dolokhov puts them on the ground, a few wispy
fragments of red and blue drifting between his fingers to the ground. He looks
so far away, Dolokhov thinks, but closer all the same than he has been in a
while. He offers Anatole the flowers to put down, but Anatole shakes his head
and gestures stiffly for him to do it. He does not take his eyes off the
flowers until the head of a poppy is brushing the Lin Helene’s name, the red
startling bright against the stone. Colour in a grey world, Dolokhov thinks,
god I wish there was something to kill, any easier battle than this.
The flowers down, Anatole starts to cry. Strange though it is, Dolokhov feels
his heart lift. He holds on for a long time whilst Anatole cries, still
curiously silently, into his shoulder, shaking but alive between the slab of
sky and the stone beneath them. It feels as though he will never stop and
Dolokhov is somehow happier with that than he has been. But he does stop, a
river or so later, bends over as best he can and brushes the letters of her
name in the stone, frowning at Bezukhovaas though it is some kind of a mistake.
In the weeks that follow Anatole still does not speak, though he reacts now, at
least to follow Dolokhov with his eyes, nod or shake his head in response to
questions. He eats without prompting, watches the world around him without
staring through it quite as absently as before. It is still not enough,
Dolokhov thinks. He stops trying the ever turning cycle of different
approaches, and simply loves and is patient. He had not known he had that in
him.  
Until finally, on a warm day in July, Anatole has been sat looking out of the
window, half here, half absent all morning but he turns when Dolokhov picks up
a bag, shrugs on a light coat and abruptly says –
“Goodbye, Anatole.”
Anatole frowns deeply. His mouth opens a fraction, lips moving as though he has
forgotten how to speak, but no sound comes out.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Dolokhov sighs heavily, he feels it, with an
enormous part of his soul, the weight of responsibility of trying and trying
without success – “I’m sorry Anatole, I’ll find someone else for you but I have
to go, travel - I don’t know yet - anywhere.” He says it as though a series of
questions that have not been asked have been vocalised between the lines.
“I’m sorry,” he says, picking his bag off the floor and pausing, walking almost
in slow motion out the door. His back is all but completely turned when he
hears a whisper at first, just one word –
“Don’t.”
He turns, smiles, raises an eyebrow, not speaking his question.
“Don’t go,” Anatole’s voice is louder now, as though it has found its way home
again after travelling for too long. He moves his lips slowly and silently for
a moment as though getting used to the feel of words again. For the first time,
positively since he has known him, Dolokhov dares to believe that home might be
where he is. He does not move.
“Please – Fedya don’t go – I –” his eyes widen – “I don’t wantsomeone else. I –
just you. I – don’t go. Please.”
Dolokhov smiles. He is not sure he has ever heard Anatole say pleasein his
life. Even as he smiles he feels the tears leap in his eyes. How long has it
been he thinks – since he ever cried? Months, years a life time?
“Darling boy –” he drops his bag, comes back inside, closes the door, gets down
on his knees besides Anatole’s chair, takes hold of the hands clenched – for
the first time not lying limply – in his lap – and kisses the pale fingers,
smiling and shaking his head – “I was never going to”.
He hears Anatole’s intake of breath. Thinks that once he would have shouted,
even laughed at him obnoxiously for the trick, but now when the ghost of a
smile creeps onto Anatole’s face instead, it is dearer to him than the loudest
laugh or shout and he is crying into Anatole’s knee, crying until he can barely
breathe and Anatole, frowning and smiling and stroking his hair murmuring –
Don’t, it’s alright, don’t cry Fedya, it will be alright, it will be alright
you’ll see.
__x__
Well this broke my beta, largely because the flowers- for – Helene specifics
were a reference to their fic “Name Day” (By zedrobberfor the 2007 version –
it’s beauty, go read!) I am sorry/ not sorry for all the heart breaking. :-)
Additional note - I accidentally posted this as chapter 32 instead of what was
meant to be chapter 32 but have gone back and inserted the correct chapter 32
and put this one here where it belongs and I am so sorry for the confusion. :-
)  
 
***** Dolokhov *****
 
Dolokhov
So they go on, pushing their boat out cautiously into the future, beating
against the tides that pull them back, always back. Sometimes Anatole
especially takes on a glassy gaze, head cocked to one side as though he can
hear a voice calling him back that he cannot bear to ignore. But slowly, some
days by millimetres, some by miles, they push forward. And sometimes they
capsize completely and it feels as though they might both go under; but they do
not, somehow or other they always drag each other back up before either of them
can drown. Because life, as Dolokhov has always known, life demands and life
must and there is always something every day, something to make it worth the
struggle.
And if Anatole is merely a shadow of what he used to be -and some days it seems
he really is- then who of us, Dolokhov thinks, is not. We are none of who we
were. This does not immediately imply that to be such a shadow is necessarily
bad. He thinks of all his many incarnations and is never sure which of them was
more him than the others. We are all diminished by our losses, coloured by
them, some of the fights and the damage making us stronger and others of them
not. Anatole, ever incapable of living for the future, often slips more into
the past than the present that used to dominate him. But he pulls himself out
of every reverie, shaking his head and saying –
“Good times, eh Fedya?” and sometimes, not as often as he might like, he sees
him smile and even laugh, not raucous and uncontained as he used to laugh but
gently, cautiously, the way Helene used to laugh when she was in public.
There is not a day that goes by that they do not mention her. Even years later
they still lay the table for three. Dolokhov suspects that this is not
necessarily healthy but he knows Anatole would not have it otherwise and in
truth, he would not either. When Anatole goes out alone, as he does for short
periods now and then, he still brings back trinkets, pretty things the world
has offered him, feathers and pebbles and all the pretty things that he has
never lost his eye for even if he has lost it in regard to other people. He
always returns with something random for Dolokhov and something else for the
drawer in the top of the dresser that is not actually marked with Helene’s name
but may as well be. He chatters to her gently as he lays each new offering in,
sometimes looking round furtively as though afraid Dolokhov will laugh at him
but he is far from laughing at it. It is as religious a behaviour as he has
ever seen from Anatole and far be it from him to question any man’s form or
object of worship out loud.
One day he does ask, half curious, half smiling –
“Don’t you ever have enough pebbles and feathers and –”
“Pinecones?” Anatole raises an eyebrow.
“Pinecones, yes.” They both laugh, thinking of Anatole’s three month long
pinecone phase, cupboards and drawers becoming full of them, Dolokhov sitting
on them, standing on them, ultimately dreaming of pinecones, checking under the
pillow for them before he went to sleep. In the end he had gently brought up
the courage to ask Anatole if he could have a slight clear out, and Anatole had
watched his every move suspiciously after saying yes. There was now a large
rotting bucket of pinecones in front of the house.
Anatole shrugs at the question, eyes bright today like the magpie he is –
“If the world ever stops giving me things I suppose I’ll stop taking them, he
says “But pretty things are there to be enjoyed aren’t they? And if the world
wants to give me gifts, who am I to say no?”
“Gifts?”
“Oh. Everything’s a gift,” he says airily – “You me, feathers and leaves. If
it’s nice and it feels good, I’ll take it and be happy, won’t you?”
He wishes he could see things as simply as Anatole does, but at least he will
take the offerings his wounded bird brings back.
“Helene always said I’d grow out of it,” he says a little later  - “I hope she
knows I can still prove her wrong.” He grins to himself before adding – “Shewas
a gift too. The first and the brightest. I wish –” he bites his lip; he tries
not to wish so much these days – “Eh, not everything can last can it?” he
shrugs – “Just have to make the most of things. You’re still here, thank god.”
“Yes dearest –” Dolokhov squeezes his hand – “Yes, I’m still here.”
Years pass. They live. It is perhaps the greatest victory that can ever be
achieved, the greatest joy to be able to say we continue, we go on.Life, it
seems, will always be the happy ending, to see and feel and enjoy, and even if
they fight sometimes and hurt and remember and cry-if these things happen every
day so too do the others. They eat and drink, play and row, laugh at the grey
in each other’s hair, wonder when it first crept in, how they never noticed.
They live and they love and a thousand stories pass by in silence until another
end reaches them.
Twenty years later, thirty perhaps, Anatole dies of old age younger than he
ought. He is too accepting; Dolokhov thinks, too ready to go, and he cannot
bring himself either to unhappiness or misery at this being the case. In the
last weeks Anatole feels it creeping up on him, feels himself slipping and does
not fight it.
“It’s been fun hasn’t it?” he says smiling – “Life I mean. It’s a good show. I
always knew we had just one between us – Helene and I - I mean. It makes sense
I suppose – that we would just have one span between us – I suppose – I suppose
there has to be some balance for how happy we’ve been. I don’t mind, I think
the only evil would be to go without being able to say I enjoyed it. Yes –” he
nods decidedly – “I think so. I’ve done alright. I wonder –” he looks almost
excited at the consideration – “I wonder what happens next, eh? Don’t you wish
I could tell you?”
He frowns then for the first time –
“You’ll be alright, eh Fedya? Without me, I mean – don’t miss me too much when
I’m gone eh?”
Dolokhov swallows hard.
“Miss you?” he grins – “I’ll be glad of the peace and quiet.”
Anatole slaps him weakly, calls him names –
“You and your stupid jokes,” he grins – “I’ll miss you. Even in heaven. We’ll
be watching you, you know that right?”
Anatole’s mind, always as steady as a butterfly, now flicks from emotion to
emotion quicker than leaves of a book fluttering in a sudden wind and from half
serious he suddenly becomes entirely so –
“You remember when I told you Helene was the first great gift life ever gave
me?”
Dolokhov nods –
“I always felt bad for saying that because I thought you might feel you were –
I don’t know, lesssomehow? But it makes sense you see, because she was there at
the beginning and you – you’re here now at the end, and maybe that’s what
defines a man’s life, y’know – who was there at the beginning and then at the
end? You’ve balanced me, you and Helene – you’ve been the things to keep life
so good, and I love you, both the same and not the same, you know?”
He is not fully sure he doesknow, but Anatole’s drifting eyes are begging to be
understood and he knows at least, what he doubted for so long at the beginning
– that he is loved and it easy enough to nod and squeeze that frail hand as say
–
“Yes, yes I know.”
Anatole smiles and says goodbye.
Dolokhov sits in silence for hours or days. Sometimes he walks in silence,
standing out on the front porch looking up at the sky wondering how it is, how
it can be possiblethat that grey wide sky is still the same. Surely, he thinks,
there should at least be another comet, a great streak to slash the grey from
side to side, for the comet after all, brought nothing, not really, and this,
surely is the end of the world.
When nothing happens he begins to realise that once again life goes on; or
something like it. He feels hollowed out, diminished beyond measure without
their sparkle, their glamour. Their laughs still reel between his ears but all
the brightness, the beauty is gone. Without them, without anything, what is he
now? Just a man on the verge of being old, with only an internal self to keep
him going.
It is enough. It has always been enough, and if the price for being amongst the
bright and the beautiful is a fleeting life then the consolation surely for
being otherwise is endurance. We go on,he thinks. I can make us all go on.This
is what he has: himself, their memories, the laughter between the ears and the
thousand appellations that belong to him, Dolokhov the assassin, the explorer,
the fighter. Dolokhov the soldier, the daredevil, the reprobate.Everything gone
now that makes life beautiful, everything but the will to go on.
So another story starts. It starts with a man on the road, in the desert, out
at sea. It starts with a man on the deck of a ship with the salt spray in his
face, a man out of place and out of time, a stranger in a heavy greatcoat
looking forwards, looking at nothing, looking at everything. A man that nobody
dares speak to and everyone wonders about. He can hear them whisper about him
and he smiles to himself but does not let rumour or legend fester into fact,
preferring to remain apart from it all. Perhaps he gets a reputation for
loneliness, for danger, for romance. He cares, but he does not care which. He
hopes they write the stories down.
He imagines worlds and sets out to see them. He knows the imagined world will
be a thousand miles apart from the place he is headed towards. He pictures new
worlds and writes over them with the places he sees and at night he dreams of a
land that is stranger and more distant still, a world where flowers grow the
likes of which can never be seen, where the clouds are strange and the meadows
and forests are populated with strange beasts and rainbow plants. He dreams of
horses with wings, silver and copper and a palace set in the heart of a
fantastical maze where a princess has waited for her prince to come home. He
dreams of them standing on the battlements, looking out across their kingdom,
smiling with the sunset on their skin, looking out across the fields for the
rider they know will come to join them soon enough. He can hear the song of
fantastical birds, see the dust of the road spray up golden beneath his horse’s
feet.  
He does not love, he hears them say, does not feel as other men do and perhaps
it has become true he could not say. The only thing for certain now is wherever
he goes, whatever strange winds he braves he turns his face into them head on,
a smooth, well-worn pebble in his pocket and a ring on a chain around his neck.
And the sky is irrelevant.
__x__
It’s finished folks can you believe it?! There will be an epilogue to come
though so keep an eye out! :-)
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