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Hélène thought in despair. ‘They’re all stupid. Clinging on to their mother’s skirts as if they werebabies, how shameful! And that Nathalie who’s a head taller than me …’
    Hélène looked at the children and they looked back in silence. Nathalie, who seemed to understand Hélène’s discomfort and enjoy it, played hide and seek with her fat, malicious face, covering it with the folds of her mother’s dressing gown and then, when she was sure her mother couldn’t see her, coming out again to puff up her cheeks, stick out her tongue, squint and pull horrible faces, until Madame Grossmann looked towards her, when she suddenly put on the expression of a sweet, smiling, chubby-cheeked little angel.
    ‘Monsieur Karol has gone away’, Hélène heard someone say, ‘for two years, I believe?’
    ‘Working in the gold mines,’ said Mademoiselle Rose.
    ‘In Siberia, how awful …’
    ‘He’s not complaining; I think he likes the climate.’
    ‘But two years away! The poor little girl …’
    Mademoiselle Rose held Hélène’s face close to her and stroked it. The child pulled away angrily. For the first time in her life she was ashamed of being abandoned: she didn’t want these people to see her governess consoling her.
    They left. Hélène now walked on ahead and every time Mademoiselle Rose took her hand, she slowly pulled away, not harshly, but with the sly determination of a dog who wishes to pull free from a lead that is annoying him. At the street corners a biting wind lashed her face, causing tears to well up in her eyes; she furtively wiped her nose and eyes with the end of her fur glove where little flakes of ice were beginning to form.
    ‘Cover your mouth with your muff. Stand up straight, Hélène …’
    She didn’t take much notice; she stood up straight for a moment, then immediately dropped her head again. For the first time she thought seriously about her life and her family, but with a passionate attempt to find some sort of stability and happiness in her own existence; it was not in her nature to give in to pointless despair.
    ‘I’m happy too when I’m in my room with the lamp on. We’ll soon be home. I’ll sit down at my little yellow desk …’ She pictured with fondness the little desk of painted wood, which was just the right size for her, then the oil lamp with its green porcelain shade, shedding a milky light over her book. ‘No, I won’t read. All those books make me anxious and unhappy. I have to be happy; I have to be like other people. Tonight I’ll have my glass of milk, my bread and jam, the last piece of chocolate before brushing my teeth. When no one is watching I’ll hide the
Mémorial
under my pillow. No, no. Tonight, I’ll cut out pictures, I’ll draw … I’m happy; I want to be a happy little girl,’ she thought. And the thick ice and sinister shadows beneath a nearby porch, the dark windows with melting snow flowing down them like tears, became a blur before her eyes, merging to form a black, restless sea.

5
    When Hélène first began to understand life, Sunday became a day she anticipated with a feeling of sad anguish: Mademoiselle Rose spent every Sunday with some French friends, leaving Hélène hostage to the crushing affection of her elderly grandmother. Once she’d learned her lessons, nothing lightened the empty hours, nothing allowed her to take refuge in an alternative universe, one that was sweet and tinged with brilliant silver from the last rays of light before sunset, one that chimed like the porcelain cup that sat on the sideboard. On Sundays, as soon as she opened a book, her grandmother would groan, ‘My darling, my sweet, sweet treasure, you’re going to wear out your beautiful eyes …’
    And if Hélène were playing, she’d say, ‘Don’t bend down so much. You’ll hurt yourself. Don’t jump. You’ll fall. Don’t throw your ball against the wall. You’ll annoy Grandpa. Come and sit on my lap, my darling, let me hold