My Nine Lives. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

which he also loved—for the same decorative solidity that had formed the background of his Berlin youth and his courtship of my mother.

      “It’s a privilege for us to give him what he has never had. A quiet orderly home, meals on time—yes yes, this sounds very—what do you call it? Stuffy? Square? But even artists,” he smiled, “have to eat and sleep.”

      “What about Kitty?” I said.

      “Kitty. Exactly. They’re too much alike, you see; artistic temperaments. Sometimes he needs—they both need—a rest from the storm and stress. Nothing has changed. Leonora and I are what we have always been.”

      “Mother looks wonderful.”

      “You know how she has always adored music above everything.” Then he exclaimed: “Dear heaven, who says we’re not sensible grown-up people! We’ve learned how to behave. You’re still a child, lambkin.” He squeezed my arm, in token of my misery and failure. “One day you too will learn that everything turns out the way it has to, for good; for our good.” He pointed his umbrella—at the sky this time, inviting me to look upward with him toward the immense perfection that was always with us, encompassing our small mismanaged lives.

      A week or two after my arrival, Yakuv returned from his tour. He had not changed. He at once went into what used to be my bedroom—without apology, probably he didn’t realize that it had been mine, or simply took it for granted that it was now his. He greeted me with a comradely clap on the shoulder, not as if I had been away for several years but as if I had showed up as usual for my weekly lesson. Leonora followed him into the room; she had to unpack his bag, she said, because if she didn’t it would stand there for weeks. But this was said with a smile, not in the reproachful way she used for Kitty’s and my untidiness. After a while, during which Rudy went for another of his walks, she emerged with an armful of Yakuv’s laundry. Soon came the sound of his piano, and every day after that it seemed to fill, to appropriate the apartment. If I moved around or shut a door a little too loudly, she or Rudy, or both, laid a finger on their lips.

      Leonora did everything possible to create the best conditions for his work. She arranged his schedule with his agent, whom he often fired so that she had to find a new one; and since it infuriated him to have anyone disarrange his music sheets, she cleaned his room herself. Otherwise he was calm, immersed in his work. He rarely asked for anything and good-naturedly accepted even what he didn’t want—Leonora once gave him a dark blue velvet smoking jacket, and though he mildly protested (“So now I must look like a monkey”), he let her coax him into it. He also smoked the better brand of cigars she bought him to replace the little black ones he was used to. He had personal habits but was not entrenched in them, and if it made no difference to him, he gladly obliged her in everything.

      That was during the day. But during the evening meal, he would push his plate back and without waiting for the rest of us to finish—he still ate in the same rapid, ravenous way—he went out, banging the front door behind him. He never said that he was going, or where; he was not expected to, and anyway, we knew. But there were times when he did not return for several days, and while I had no idea what transpired between him and Kitty during those days, I was very much aware of the effect his absence had on Leonora. She behaved like a sick person. She stayed in her bedroom with the curtains drawn, and “Leave me alone,” was all she ever said to Rudy’s and my efforts to rally her. It was not until Yakuv returned that she got up, bathed and dressed and tried to return to her normal self. But this was not possible for her; she appeared to have suffered a collapse—even physically she had lost weight and her splendid breasts sagged within her large bra. I don’t think Yakuv noticed any of this; anyway, it did not affect him since in his presence she made a brave attempt to pull herself together and go about her household duties as usual, especially her duties to him. She would not have known how to stage the sort of confrontations that he was used to with Kitty; and since these were lacking, he probably assumed that everything was fine with Leonora—that is, insofar as he thought of her at all.

      Rudy wanted to take her on a Mediterranean cruise. A few years earlier they had enjoyed sailing around the Greek Islands, but now Leonora was reluctant to leave. She said she couldn’t; Lina was too old and cranky to look after the house properly, everything would be topsy-turvy. I could hear my parents arguing in their bedroom at night, Rudy as usual calm and reasonable, but she not at all her usual self. In the mornings Rudy would emerge alone from their bedroom, and he and I would discuss ways of persuading her. We laid stress on her health—“Look at you,” I said, making her stand before her bedroom mirror.

      She drew her hand down her cheek: “You think I look terrible?”

      “You’ll see how well you’ll look after a change—young all over again. Young and beautiful.”

      “Really?” She continued dubiously to regard herself in the mirror.

      It was only when I promised to take over all her responsibilities that she began to accept the idea of Rudy’s cruise. But first she had to train me in the arts that she herself had learned from her mother and grandmother; and it was only when she was satisfied that I knew how to take care of all Yakuv’s needs that she finally agreed to leave. Rudy was overjoyed; he whispered promises of another honeymoon. He packed their suitcases in his expert way but humbly unpacked them again when she, who also prided herself on her packing, pointed out how much better it could be done.

      It was only when he saw these suitcases standing in the hall on the day before departure that Yakuv realized what was going on. His reaction was unexpected: he took the cigar out of his mouth and said, “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” When Leonora began to speak, he waved his hands and stalked off into his room. We waited for the piano to start up but nothing happened; only silence, disapproval seeped from that room and filled the apartment and Leonora’s heart so that she whispered, “We can’t go.”

      I had never seen my father so angry. “But this is too much! Now we have reached the limit!” Leonora and I gazed in astonishment, but he went on, “Who is this man, what does he think?” Then—“Tomorrow he leaves! No today! Now! Hop!” He made straight for Yakuv’s door, and had already seized the handle when Leonora grasped his arm. They tussled—yes, my parents physically tussled with each other, a sight I never thought to see. She pleaded, he insisted, she used little endearments (in German) until he turned from the door. His thinning grey hair was ruffled, another unprecedented sight in my serene and serenely elegant father. In response to Leonora’s imploring looks, I joined in her pleas to postpone this expulsion, at least until they returned from their trip. “Our second honeymoon,” Leonora pleaded, until at last, still red and ruffled, he agreed.

      But later that night he came to my room. He told me that by the time they returned from their cruise, Yakuv would have to be out, pronto, bag and baggage, and it was up to me to see that this was done. His mouth thin and determined—“Bag and baggage,” he repeated, and then, in another splutter of anger: “Ridiculous. Unheard of.”

      They were to be away for six weeks and during that time I had to get Yakuv to pack up and leave. But he gave me no opportunity to talk to him. He stayed in his room, and all day the apartment resounded with music of storm and stress. Only sometimes he rushed out to walk in the Park; once I followed him, but there too it was impossible to talk to him. Hunched in an old black coat that was too long for him, he appeared sunk in his thoughts. His hands were in his pockets and he only took them out to gesticulate in furious argument with whatever was going on under his broad-brimmed hat.

      I had to turn to Kitty for help. The change in Kitty was as marked as it was in Leonora, but in the opposite direction. It was Kitty who looked calm, and though no longer young, she now appeared younger than before. Instead of her long skirts and dangling loops of jewelry, she wore a flowered artist’s smock that made her look as wholesome as a kindergarten teacher. Her eyes had lost their inward brooding look and were clear and intent on the proof-sheets she was holding up to the light. She made me admire them with her—they were all of pretty little girls posed on her tree-stumps—and she only put them down when I told her of the task my father had imposed on me.

      She laughed in surprise: “I thought Rudy was so proud of keeping his own little