The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [303]
“My problem?”
“I think you are an unmarried lady, expecting a child, and you cannot take your child back to your own country, because of social disgrace—for you, and for your esteemed alchemical father.”
“That is so. If I tell you the whole silly—the whole mad—story, you will despise me. I have almost decided I must give away this—this child—without even looking at it. Immediately. But that is a hard thing to contemplate.”
“You will harm yourself if you do so. As well as the child. Has it no father?”
Florence’s face, which for the last weeks had been grave and somewhat vacant, puckered into tearful rage, which was then mastered.
“I dislike him. It’s weaker than hatred, it’s pure dislike. Do you understand? I made a very foolish mistake. It is horrid, the whole thing is horrid.”
“But your father cares for you.”
“He has a young wife. The same age—as me. She is expecting a child. They are very happy. Or they were, until I made my mistake. I have ruined their happiness and my own.”
“These children will be born and will have their own lives. They are not ruined. But human children are helpless. They must be cared for until they can stand on their feet. I sound sententious. But you have forgotten this.”
Florence was silent. Gabriel said
“I think you would be better if you had a husband?”
“I can’t. I have to face that, too. No one will…” She said “I was engaged to be married. I sent the ring back.”
Gabriel Goldwasser’s silences provoked truth-telling.
“I didn’t love him. I always knew that. I’ve ruined his happiness, too.”
“Only if he allows that. You are not a Fate, Frau Colombino, but a young woman who has made one or two mistakes. If you had a husband, you could go back to your museum, with your child—”
“I don’t know that I want to go back—”
“Or make a life somewhere. I want to suggest—to propose myself, as a suitable Austrian husband.”
“But you—”
“I know it is odd. I am proposing myself because I am living on the surface. I shan’t want to marry in the way people marry—for—passion, or for—social reasons. My best hope is to continue living lightly, on the surface. But I should like to give you—a viable identity.”
Something appalling happened to Florence. She had a vision of Gabriel Goldwasser, like the angel he was named for, walking on the surface of the lake, scattering brightness from his sunny hair. She saw that she ought not to marry him, not because he did not love her, but because she might come to love him. And he was queer, and had secrets, which he was not looking into.
“What would you do,” she said, on a dangerous impulse, “if I married you, and then came to love you?”
“I do not think that would happen,” he said. “You are too intelligent. You know we love each other, in an—unusual?—way, and that that is all. It is a good reason for marrying. I need to help you.”
Florence began to weep. Gabriel stroked her hair. The child inside stretched its frog-fingers and its stick-legs, and put a fine thumb into its unfinished ghost-mouth, and sucked.
Prosper Cain came back to Ascona, and Florence explained Gabriel’s plan.
“I could be Frau Goldwasser. I could come home.”
“And what would Herr Goldwasser gain from this? Does he need money?”
“No, no, he needs nothing, that is why I trust him. He says he needs to live on the surface. He is a kind of monk, Papa, he is quixotic.”
“Don Quixote was anything but a monk.”
“Don’t mix me up. You always do. I know it sounds mad, but I do believe it may work. What did you think would happen to this child? I shan’t lie on these sunbeds and drink juice for ever.”
“I imagined it would be given away. No, Florence, don’t, don’t be angry. I thought you must decide. I thought that was what you would decide.”
“I could not give away the child, Papa, and come home and see you and Imogen dandling one. How could I do that? This way, I can—I can plan my life—”
Prosper Cain met Gabriel Goldwasser and took to him. It was hard for him not to, though the soldier was trim and upright, and the Austrian was shaggy and bearlike. Prosper prided himself on being