“I cannot afford it.” She thought about the leather-bound volume of Gogol’s stories on Charing Cross that she had spotted the other day. Twenty-eight pence. She wanted it badly. But she hadn’t bought it. If she couldn’t afford a book, how could she manage such an increase? She hated to take money from Gerhard in the first place. She couldn’t ask him for more.
“I’m sorry, Miss Zimmer. But I am running a business here—it is my home but it is a business, the only business my husband and I now have. And what with all the doctors, and all the medications—” She stopped herself. “Let me know what you decide. But the rent will be increased in two months’ time.”
“And if I can’t pay it?”
Mrs. Deering’s voice got softer. “Then you’ll have to make other arrangements.”
Rose’s arms ached by the time she made it to Gerhard’s in Hampstead. She carried a string bag heavy with three loaves of bread and a fragrant bouquet of purple and white hyacinths that had been a last-minute purchase when she had gotten off the Tube. (She told herself not to think about the fifteen pence that she spent on them.) She walked up Holly Hill, past the white-stoned fa?ade of St. Mary’s, the streets much cleaner and quieter than in South Kensington.
When Mrs. Tompkins opened the door to her brother’s flat, Rose detected the slight but stubborn odor of new paint. “Miss Zimmer,” Mrs. Tompkins greeted Rose. “Mrs. Zimmer is resting in the drawing room.”
“No, I am here, I am here,” Isobel called as her fair head peeked into view. Her belly was straining against the ribbon that held her silk wrapper closed. Still she managed to look beautiful, her tousled hair shiny, her full lips fuller. “Hyacinths?” she exclaimed. “Oh, Rose, they are too lovely.”
“I saw them and decided you must have them,” Rose said, and promptly reddened.
“They are positively gorgeous, and perhaps they’ll cut that awful new paint smell. It is horrid, isn’t it?”
“I barely smell it.”
“Oh, you’re a liar,” Isobel said with a laugh. “I love you but you are a terrible liar.”
“Ma’am, let me put these lovelies into water,” Mrs. Tompkins said. “Miss Zimmer, I’ll take your things as well.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Tompkins, and I picked up some loaves as well,” Rose said, wriggling out of her coat, handing the string bag over.
“You must stop going to the bakery and standing in that queue for us,” Isobel protested. “It is wholly unnecessary.”
“You say that every week,” Rose said.
“And every week it is true. Come. Let’s go into the drawing room.”
“How are you feeling? You look bigger than you did last week. Lovely,” Rose said, catching herself, “you look lovely.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Isobel said dismissively. “Quite fine. No problems at all.” And she did look more than fine. No one Rose knew had had children yet, but Isobel looked as if her pregnancy was only one of her many activities. She could fit childbirth in while moving to a new flat while planning a dinner party while arguing that yes, the summer Olympics would be a boon for London.
The late-afternoon light filtered in through the bay windows, and it created honey-colored pools on the maple floorboards. “Look at this.” Isobel gestured to a chair by the fireplace. “What do you think of it?”
“Is it new?” Rose said, hesitating. The chair was made of pale wood, austere but sinuous too. The wood bent this way and that. How did it do that and not break? It looked like nothing she wanted to sit in.
“Yes, I bought it the other day. It was designed by a husband-and-wife team who teach at Croydon. Isn’t it wonderfully fresh?”
“Wonderfully fresh and wholly uncomfortable,” Gerhard called as he came in. He carried a cigarette case in one hand and wore a crisp brown suit. Rose look down at her own skirt and noticed with renewed consternation the wrinkles she’d shrugged off when she pulled it on this morning.
Isobel sighed. “No one is asking you.”
“Rose is sensible. She will agree with me.” He leaned in and gave his sister a brush on the cheek. “Right, mausi?” Rose thought her brother looked bigger—broader in the shoulders, more imperious. But perhaps it was the fine wool suit, perhaps it was impending fatherhood.
“Are you saying I’m insensible?” Isobel asked. “Never mind, I don’t care if you think I am.” In fact, Rose thought Isobel probably preferred Gerhard to think of her that way. “Come here, Rose.” She patted the cushion beside her. “Come talk to me. Sit here: it’s a highly comfortable, old-fashioned settee, with tea rose fabric and all. Your brother’s favorite.” Gerhard snorted, and she continued: “Exams are soon, aren’t they? How are you faring?”
“They are. I’m doing all right. It should be all right. I like my Russian literature class,” she said with what she hoped was a confident, easy, Isobel-like air. “We’re reading Dostoyevsky.”
“Dostoyevsky?” Isobel said, twisting to puff up the pillow behind her back, frowning as she did so.
“Yes, The Brothers Karamazov.”
“Oh yes,” Isobel said. “Are you reading Miss Garnett’s translation? An astonishing woman. Do you know that she learned Russian when she was confined to bed during a difficult pregnancy? And then she had the child, left him with her husband, and went to Russia for several months—”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Gerhard said.
Isobel shook her head at him. “She met Tolstoy and stayed with him at his dacha. Then she came back to England and spent decades translating the Russians. I met her once, in Kent, not long before she died. She wasn’t well, she was on crutches then, but we had a great chat about Newnham.”
“Hold on,” Gerhard said. “Did you meet her through that White Russian of yours?”
Isobel sighed. “He was not a White Russian. He was a nobleman with the heart of a revolutionary.”
“Who preyed on young, idealistic English girls,” Gerhard said.
“There was no preying to be had,” Isobel said. “But your jealousy is quite sweet, really.” She laid a hand on his forearm, cocked her head at Rose. “Pay your brother no mind. It was quite an honor to meet Miss Garnett. Without her, we would not have access to those great Slavic minds.”
“Yes,” Rose said, still feeling confused. Her sister-in-law had met Constance Garnett, the great translator of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? She had read the Russians too? Was there nothing she couldn’t do? Isobel, Rose was sure, would be trotting out unexpected facts about herself well into her eighties.
“I’m so very glad you’re enjoying your classes. Everyone should have an education. Particularly women—”
“‘Particularly’?” Gerhard asked, opening his cigarette case, taking an ashtray from the mantel.
“Especially,” Isobel said. “Especially women. And especially you, Rose. It’s criminal to think that you of all people wouldn’t have an education.”
“I’m grateful to you,” Rose said quickly. “To you and Gerhard. I am so grateful.”