Once they were four; now they are two.
Sometimes Ilse wonders if this was the way it was always meant to be.
But then she'll find Melchior thinking of times gone by and a girl with curly hair or he'll startle her out of daydreams of a boy with a nervous laugh and she knows that this isn't how things aren't meant to be, but it is how they turned out.
She's not unhappy. On the contrary, given the first fifteen years of life, the ten since then have been near bliss. They moved to Paris, Montmartre to be exact, to live with the artists. Ilse takes to painting on occasion, and sculpting even more than that. Melchior frequents the Moulin or Le Chat Noir and argues philosophy and politics with men from all walks of life. Somewhere in the middle he asks her to marry him (the good boy he once was still lurks beneath his laissez-faire exterior) and she can't think of a good reason to say no. To keep themselves fed and sheltered, she works in a cafe and he tutors in Latin and Greek to the children of the wealthy.
It's rare that they speak of home. When they refer to it, it's simply as 'before'. Before they were married, before they came to Paris, before the other halves of them died.
(In point of fact, the only time he gets genuinely angry with her is when she sends word to Ernst, who is her cousin, that they've married. Not, she learns, because he doesn't want people to know that they're together, but because they'll know where they are. They've left that place and Melchior never wants reminders of what was. She doesn't point out that they are each other's constant reminders. She has a feeling he knows.)
They live together and sleep together and even begin to love one another. At twenty-four, they learn she's with child. Melchior withdraws a little, spending more time at the cabarets and taverns, and taking on more work. When he is home, he seems almost frightened to touch her. She understands his fears and waits for him to come around but it's unnecessary. One evening a brawl breaks out at the café she works at, and she is shoved roughly. Before she can regain her balance she falls down the short flight of stairs to the street, and just like that, the child is gone.
After the doctor leaves, Melchior kneels next to their bed where she lays and begs for her forgiveness. He somehow believes he brought it on, by not loving her enough, by not loving their baby enough. She knows better, but lets him cry out his despair, knowing that it's not just their child he's grieving for. And after he's quieted and sleeping next to her, she silently cries in her own grief. It takes losing their baby for her to realise just how much she'd come to love it.
Life goes on. Outwardly things stay mostly the same. Melchi tutors during the day and goes to the cabarets during the evening. Ilse paints and sculpts and finds work at a different café for the evenings. (She couldn't return to the other and climb those steps every day.) But things are different. For the first time since they left home, she doesn't feel as though Melchior is wishing she were someone else, and she never pictures blue eyes when he's holding her in his arms.
The spring of their eleventh year in Paris brings visitors from home: Melchior's parents. Ilse always loved Mrs. Gabor with her soft voice and open smiles and Mr. Gabor was so different from her own father that being around him always felt bittersweet. He never raised a hand to Melchior when they were children, and Ilse knew from a very young age that the Gabor household was a safe one. So she welcomes them both with open arms when she finds them standing nervously on their threshold.
Melchior takes a little longer to warm up. It's clear that while this is not the life his parents would have chosen for him, they're trying to keep an open mind. But he can't forget being sent away, can't forgive what happened while he was gone. Eventually, he lets them know. Screams at them all the pain and anger he's been holding in since he left home. To their credit, his parents don't yell back or lash out; they just stand and absorb everything he sends at them. He shouts until he's hoarse, and at the end, he crumples and cries. Ilse wants more than anything to go to his side and hold him, but his mother beats her to it, and she knows that they both need this right now.
After that, Melchior slowly opens himself up to them. He takes his father to Le Chat and they get into rousing debates. Ilse finds herself showing her art to both parents and they're sincerely impressed and offer to purchase one of her paintings, but she gives it to them. It's an oil painting of Melchior sitting at their table, the morning light illuminating him.
One night when she's not working and Melchior and his father are out, Ilse opens up to Mrs. Gabor about the child she lost. In her mother-in-law's arms, she lets herself cry about it for the first time since it happened. She tells her the fears she has of becoming with child once more, and how she doesn't know if she could take that kind of loss again. Mrs. Gabor relates to her of a child she lost before she had Melchior and how she had similar fears, but that those all changed the moment she laid eyes on Melchi. "The love you have for your child," she says, "makes any pain leading to them worth it. There's no other purer joy."
They stay nearly two months in total. When they take their leave, the hugs linger, and Ilse knows that should they ever choose to go back home, there would be at least one house where they would be welcome.
It is nearly six months later that Ilse finds herself with child again. Melchior insists that she quit working, and, as they've actually got some money saved and are living comfortably, she agrees. He constantly hovers, to the point where she becomes cross with him. She knows he's scared, but she's nervous, too, and he's not helping, which she tells him in a biting tone.
He cries. She expected angry words back, but she has no defence against his tears. She grasps his hand as he stutters out how he fears he's being punished. He's been studying Eastern philosophy and the notion of karma has become ingrained in his philosophy. And, he reminds her, he can't help but feel that the balance of scales still weighs against his happiness. He still blames himself for the deaths of their young loves, and he feels that the death of their first child was only part of his penance.
So, she reminds him of all the good he's done. She reminds him of the love that both Wendla and Moritz received from him, and how they loved him in return. She reminds him of the hours spent improving the minds of his students without the judgements that he faced in his youth. She reminds him of the passion for seeking truth that he's instilled in a new generation, and how those boys and girls are already changing the world around them. She reminds him of the happiness he's given her for twelve years, and how much she loves the life that they've built together.
"Surely, my love, that more than balances your karmic scale."
He kisses her hands, then her face. And as he takes her in his arms, she sees his eyes lose the haunted expression they've had since she told him they were expecting.
Jean Moritz Gabor comes into the world red-faced and wailing, and it is the most beautiful sound his parents have ever heard. Melchior is convinced that he is the smartest baby to have ever been born. Ilse, naturally agrees with his pronouncement, and adds that Jean is also the handsomest baby in existence. Ilse finds that Mrs. Gabor was right and that all the pain in the world is worth it when she holds her baby in her arms. The fierceness with which she loves her child feels primal, and is nearly overwhelming. Melchior enters the nursery one evening to find her crying over the crib, gently stroking Jean's cheek as he sleeps.
When he asks her what her troubles are, she can't help but choke out the truth: She doesn't understand why her parents stopped loving her. Or if they ever loved her to begin with. They could never have loved her as much as she and Melchior love Jean. If they had, they wouldn't have hurt her the way that they did. But her real fear is, what if that were to happen to her? What if she were to stop loving Jean one day? How could she carry on living?
Melchior's eyes are troubled as he strokes her hair. He knows well enough what her home life was like, and has expressed guilt in the past for not trying to find ways to help her. But it's clear from the soft words he utters, that he doesn't share her concerns.
"There are so many ways in which we are different from our parents, that what happened to you my love, could never happen to our children. I will never raise a hand to Jean, but should the impossible happen, you would never let me hurt him. I have no doubt of that. Your parents were weak, cowardly and unloving. Those three words have never and will never describe you. That is how I know you will never repeat your parents' mistakes."
He gathers her close, and she takes a moment to sort through it in her mind. She takes just a minute before she stands, smiles softly at him, and puts the fear behind her, hopefully forever. Melchior once told her that her ability to move on from things, not to dwell, but to survive and thrive was what he most admired about her. For some reason he thinks it is not a quality he possesses, but he's wrong. If he didn't, he wouldn't be with her in Paris, he'd still be in a graveyard in Germany.
Life continues on and they continue on with it. In Jean's third year, their world changes again, both figuratively and literally. Melchi, who continued to argue the merits and vagaries of semantics and linguistics with anyone qualified to offer an opinion back, gains the attentions of Ferdinand de Saussure who offers to mentor him and help refine his arguments. It's an unbelievable offer – de Saussure is the leading mind in the philosophies of language and while Melchi doesn't agree with all of his suppositions, he recognises the depth of knowledge and intellect that would be at his disposal.
M. de Saussure resides in Geneva, so with heavy hearts they depart from their little apartment in the 18e Arrondissement to make a new life in Switzerland. Melchior apologises for taking her away from her community of artists, but she's not as sad as she once may have been. Vincent was dead in Auvers within a month of their arrival in Paris; Lautrec, Morisot, and Seurat have followed in the time since; Degas has withdrawn himself, having alienated most of his friends, and Rodin would appear to be spending most of his time in London. These were the artists she had come to learn from, and though there were others, she could feel, as could they, that la belle époque was coming to a close. Perhaps the lakes and mountains of Geneva would offer new inspiration.
On the journey to Geneva, Ilse becomes ill, which she assures Melchior is a result of the traveling and that there isn't anything to be concerned with. When she doesn't improve in the week following their arrival, he insists on a doctor, and it is he who tells him that they should be expecting an addition to their little family in approximately seven months. This time, both she and Melchior are unreservedly ecstatic over the news.
It is two weeks before Christmas when their daughter arrives. Claudie Wendla Gabor is an imperious little thing right from the start. When she's tired, or hungry, or soiled, or uncomfortable, the whole family feels her wrath. However, when she's happy (and it takes very little to make her happy) she's charming, bubbly, and sweet. She holds her parents under her spell, and her big brother is her most devoted knight.
One evening Ilse's eyes meet Melchi's across their parlour. He's holding Claudie on his lap, reading to her from a picture book that his parents brought during their last visit, a book which they can now both recite from memory. She sits next to Jean as he works on his sums, offering encouragement or some gentle correction where necessary. Melchior's eyes reflect the love and joy that she knows he sees in hers.
Once they were two and now they are four.
Ilse knows that this is the way it was always meant to be.