‘You heard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then …’ He frowns.
‘There’s nothing left to say, Léo. I’m going. You’re staying. I never want to see you again.’ She slings her rucksack on to one shoulder. Then she realises she’s still wearing her gown. She dumps the rucksack and pulls the heavy white cloth over her head. When she drops it in a heap at her feet she feels lighter, colder, naked. She picks up her bag again. It’s time to say goodbye, but the word won’t come.
‘I said no.’ Léo reaches out, although he doesn’t touch her. It isn’t a grand jeu gesture, and yet it could be: an urgent transition, deliberately awkward, his fingers splayed. ‘I said no, Claire. I told Emile I wasn’t doing it. I’m not going to be Magister Ludi. Didn’t you hear that part?’
She looks at his fingers, stretching towards her, and the space between his skin and hers feels heavy, like before a storm.
‘Did you hear what I said? I’m not replacing you. I turned him down. I told him he could find someone else.’ He follows her gaze and drops his hand. ‘He wasn’t too happy. Suffice to say, I think I’ve ruined my chances of getting an Order of the Empire in the next year’s Honours.’
She doesn’t move. She doesn’t believe him. Yes, she does.
‘I swear to you. Claire, I said no.’
Silence. She can hear him breathing.
At last she says, ‘Why? Don’t you want to be Magister Ludi?’
She sees him wonder whether to lie. Then he takes a deep breath. ‘Of course I do,’ he says. ‘Of course. I’ve wanted it all my life. But there are other things I want more.’
She nods, slowly. ‘And now,’ she says, ‘you expect me to be grateful.’
‘No, that isn’t … I never said that.’
‘It doesn’t change anything. They sacked me because they could. And they could because of your letters. Emile threatened me, too. With evidence that you’d given him.’
‘I was naïve – I never meant for those letters to be used like that. At all. I wasn’t thinking when I wrote them.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Léo. That’s what I’m saying.’ She leans against the wall, so weary suddenly that she isn’t sure her knees will hold her up. ‘You did one honourable thing, and you think that makes everything all right. Love conquers all. But it doesn’t. I’ve lost everything. Why should I care whether you’ve made a noble sacrifice?’
‘I thought …’ He has gone white. Whatever he says, he did think it would make everything all right; he thought that she would forgive him and they’d go off into the sunset, hand in hand. A quick, saccharine fermeture, a resolution on the major chord.
‘You turned down something you wanted. What do you expect, a medal?’
‘I did it for you.’
‘Then I’m sorry it was wasted.’
He mutters, ‘You’re very hard.’
‘I don’t have any reason to be kind to you, Léo. That’s what you think women should do, isn’t it? Make you feel better. Help you live with your mistakes. Drop a veil over the mirror. Well, too bad. I don’t have anything left to lose, so I can tell the truth.’
‘I thought the truth was that you loved me.’
‘The truth is that it’s too late.’ She wasn’t sure, before she said it, whether it was the truth; but the act of saying it seems to make it so. It sends a shiver of pain down her spine: dulled by fatigue, but unmistakable. It’s also true that she loves him.
Léo says slowly, ‘I was afraid, so I gave Emile what he wanted. It was cowardly. But I didn’t realise he’d use my letters to hurt you. Don’t you believe me?’
In a way it’s a relief that she doesn’t have to decide, that it doesn’t make a difference. ‘I’m leaving now,’ she says. ‘Goodbye, Léo.’
She doesn’t assume he will fight for her – doesn’t want him to – but all the same it registers like a bruise when all he says is, ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m not sure. The capital, probably. A hotel somewhere.’
‘Not back to your château to start a grand jeu?’ For a second she doesn’t know what he means, and then she remembers: a summer day, the cavernous space above the Great Hall, a moment when they might have touched. Her old fantasy-terror, of Montverre in ruins – and her old arrogance, to think that, whatever happened, the grand jeu would be enough.
‘I’m not twenty any more,’ she says, ‘neither of us is,’ and he winces. ‘And I sold the château.’
‘I see.’
‘Maybe I’ll see you again.’
‘Maybe …’ he says, and she doesn’t know if he’s agreeing or merely echoing what she’s said. Now he looks old. He glances at her and perhaps he sees something in her face, because all of a sudden he straightens his shoulders and the spark comes back into his eyes. He says, faintly self-mocking, ‘I don’t know what to do. If I can’t come with you.’
She holds his gaze, determined not to speak. It isn’t her problem to solve; it isn’t fair to ask her to imagine how much it will hurt, later, to know that he might have been at her side.
‘I’m still afraid,’ he says. After a moment he gives her a wry smile. ‘I can’t go back to politics, and even if I wanted to run my dad’s old scrapyard business, someone else is looking after that now. It’s going to be very empty … But not just that. After what I said to Emile, he’s got it in for me. He threatened me and I told him to do his worst. I’ll be lucky if I don’t have to leave the country.’
Doesn’t he know? But perhaps he’s been here all night, waiting, and the sound of the police bells didn’t reach this corridor … ‘Emile’s dead.’
‘What?’
‘It looks as though he fell. They found his body this morning. The police came.’
Léo’s expression doesn’t change, but she has the impression of things moving behind his eyes, like a whirlwind beyond a stone wall. ‘Are you sure?’
She doesn’t bother to answer that. ‘Did you say those things to anyone else?’
‘No,’ he says.
‘So you haven’t burnt your bridges,’ she says, and abruptly the theme of the Bridges of Königsberg asserts itself in her head, jaunty and smug and insoluble. She can remember how they laughed at it together, united in their dislike; how she used it to mimic the other scholars, and Léo begged her to stop, holding his sides. It brings a sudden ache into her throat, piercing and sharp-edged. After everything he’s done, he’s still the only person who’s seen her like that.
She catches her breath. ‘Goodbye, then.’
‘Goodbye.’ He gets to his feet, stumbling slightly as though the floor isn’t where he thought it would be. He leans towards her. But if she kisses him, she will never be able to leave. She steps back. It’s not enough, though: she can’t not look at him.
He holds her gaze. There is nothing on his face, no mask. If he can carry all of himself into a grand jeu this is what it will look like. It takes her breath away.