Obsession (Year of Fire) (83 page)

“You think I feel pressured by that?” He shook his head. “No, Yasmín. Knowing that you left Saint-Claire for me makes me very happy.”

“Then why do you look so glum?”

“Because I’m thinking that we come from different worlds. You were brought up as a princess. And I…”

“Enough, Sándor! I don’t want you to keep making the argument that I need to be pampered to keep us apart.”

“Don’t you need to be?”

“Sándor.” Yasmín inhaled to calm the anger that was bubbling up inside her. “Can we forget for a moment our situations in life and be happy about what’s happening to us? Are we going to throw away this
opportunity to get to know each other and love each other because I have money and you don’t? Then we’d be letting everything that’s bad in this world—consumerism, materialism, social conflict—end our love before it’s even begun. Sándor.” She took his face in her hands. “Let us live in the present, which, right now, is marvelous. Then we’ll see what happens.”

Though his brain didn’t work that way—he needed to plan the future down to the most minute detail—Sándor was allowing Yasmín to convince him. He loved her so much, he wanted her as he had never wanted any woman, so he didn’t need much persuading.

“If you’re saying this to me after seeing where I live…”

“I would have told you this if I had found you in a dank, filthy cave.”

“Really?”

“Though I have to admit I would have taken you out of there and brought you to live in a decent place.”

Sándor chortled.

“Your apartment is very pretty.”

“I would have straightened up a little if I had known you were coming.”

“It’s great like this, really.”

“Thank you for this surprise, Yasmín.”

“Are you happy I came?”

“The happiest man in the world. I felt terrible after our argument. That kiss we shared was all I could think about.”

He bent his head, drew her to him and kissed her again.

“Please, Sándor, make love to me.”

He took her by the wrists and, walking backward, guided her toward the bedroom. He didn’t want to worry about the poverty of his apartment, the mess his bed was in, the shoes scattered everywhere or dirty socks on the floor. He grabbed the blanket by the two opposite corners, made a pouch and tossed it onto a chair. Yasmín laughed. Sándor grew serious once more and she stared at him as he calmly took off his towel and exposed his nudity. She was so nervous, she couldn’t take her eyes off her lover’s erect penis. Although she was anxious to touch it, she didn’t take the initiative. He approached her with the security of an experienced man, and she wondered how many women he had had in that bed. He
undressed her gently, as if she were the one with the wounded body and he didn’t want to cause her pain.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Offered myself so brazenly to a man.”

“I believe you. You’re proud, my love.”

“I hope you can appreciate it. It’s a demonstration of what I feel for you. And that I’m not as proud as you think, not really.”

They made love all afternoon with a fervor neither of them had experienced before. Yasmín realized that her worries about the age difference had been groundless. The skill and agility Sándor demonstrated during sex made her feel as though she were the one five years younger. She wondered again about his women when she saw him take a box of condoms out of the bedside table. She told herself that finding out that he wasn’t a loner as she had thought would help her not to take her love for granted. She got full confirmation of his sociability at dusk, when there was a knock at the door and it turned out to be a neighbor of Sándor’s, a Russian girl who had been teaching him to speak her language. She had brought beef Stroganoff with mushrooms and rice. Yasmín got dressed quickly while Sándor opened the door in a robe. She was annoyed that they were speaking a language she didn’t understand and laughing, not to mention that the girl was very young, pretty and knew how to cook. When he saw her appear, Sándor put his arm around her waist and said in French to his neighbor, “Sveta, this is Yasmín, my girlfriend.”

After saying good-bye to the neighbor and putting the beef Stroganoff in the freezer, Sándor walked Yasmín down to the bottom floor. Before he opened the door, he pressed her into a corner in the lobby and kissed her.

“I don’t want to let you leave. Will you come back tomorrow?”

“Yes. I’ll come in the afternoon, after I leave the laboratory. It’s all your fault, I’ve been neglecting my work a lot,” she said in a childlike tone.

They went outside. If the bodyguards knew what had happened on the third floor, they didn’t let on. Yasmín slid into the backseat.

“Calo, can I talk to you for a moment?” Sándor asked him.

Calogero got out of the car and they walked a few feet away.

“I have to ask you for a favor: don’t mention to the boss that Yasmín was here today. I want to talk to him myself and explain it.”

“Don’t worry, Sanny. Our lips are sealed.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

Sándor and Yasmín stared at each other until the car turned right and she was out of sight. Sándor stayed on the corner, his gaze lost in the empty street. He recalled the tragedy of his family in Srebrenica, the horrors he and his parents had suffered at the hands of the Serbians, while his sisters were being humiliated in the concentration camp in Rogatica.
Someday I’ll have to do something about that
, he said to himself.
But today I’m happy again.

He was desperate to see her. He had returned from Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, in the early afternoon, and since then he had spent his time checking his watch, hoping it would be time to go to pick her up from the institute. He left the George V offices too early, so he got to Rue Vitruve just after six. Spring was coming and the days were getting longer, so it was still light out. He parked the Aston Martin far from the entrance of the institute so that Diana wouldn’t see him; he assumed that Markov would be in the classroom with Matilde.

At 6:20, Diana got out of the car and posted herself beside the entrance. Al-Saud’s heart leaped when he saw Matilde come out with Markov behind her. He reacted like a fifteen-year-old; he couldn’t help it. He sat up in his seat with his forearms on the steering wheel. Matilde was surrounded by a crowd of classmates who were hogging her silvery gaze and getting laughs out of her. He had hoped to find her bitter and sad.
How naive!
Matilde said good-bye to them all with a kiss and greeted Diana with a smile that would have tamed a ravenous lion. He had noticed this characteristic of Matilde’s—she paid attention to everyone around her, even the marginalized, exactly the people he wouldn’t have given a second glance. She didn’t want anyone to be unhappy, to be treated like “a piece of furniture”; at least that’s what she had screamed at him on Saturday night at the Savoy. “Matilde, Matilde,” he sighed. His Matilde. His love, his life, his treasure, his redemption.

He liked that Markov was made alert just by the sound of the Aston Martin’s door closing. In the shadows gathering on the sidewalk, the bodyguards couldn’t tell that it was him until he was within a few feet of them. Diana had hurried to push Matilde inside the car, while Markov scrutinized the approaching silhouette with a hand inside his coat.

“Eliah!” Diana said happily, and Al-Saud saw Matilde’s little face suddenly pressed against the window. They looked at each other intensely through the glass, and he thought the way she smiled at him was special. She hadn’t smiled at anyone else like that: her eyes widened, her skin lit up, her lips trembled with excitement and her accelerated breathing steamed up the glass. He opened the door and Matilde jumped into his arms and he buried his face in her neck. He felt peace, delight, excitement, jealousy, anger. He kissed her, trying to establish her as his property in front of the group of her classmates who were still chatting around the door of the institute and, just in case, in front of Markov. She returned the kiss with a gentle devotion.

Al-Saud lifted his gaze and looked at Matilde’s bodyguards, who suddenly turned their heads away, pretending that they had been watching their surroundings all the time.

“You can go. See you tomorrow.”

Matilde struggled to turn toward her guards and smiled at them. She felt so happy that she wasn’t even embarrassed.

“See you tomorrow, Diana. See you tomorrow, Sergei. Thanks for everything.”

“See you tomorrow, Matilde.”

“Sergei, huh?” said Al-Saud, in a teasing voice, and squeezed her a little more.

“That’s his name.”

“And you don’t want anyone to be treated like a piece of furniture, right?”

“That’s right.”

“How did your exam on Monday go?”

“I got a ten.”

“My woman is very intelligent,” he said with sincere pride.

“Were you angry with me, was that why you didn’t call?”

“Yes.”

“I was angry with you too, but it’s passed already.”

“Did you miss me?”

“So much, Eliah. Did you?”

“You can’t imagine how much. Shall we make peace?” Matilde nodded and Al-Saud pressed her against him again. “Let’s go home,” he begged in her ear, “and make love.”

Eliah’s plans were ruined when they found the kitchen teeming with people. It wasn’t just Mike, Tony, Peter and Alamán, but also Yasmín, who wrenched Matilde out of Eliah’s hands and dragged her away to talk. Al-Saud cursed under his breath while he put on comfortable clothes and washed his hands for dinner. He had been hoping desperately for a peaceful evening with his woman. After eating, they went up to the music room and, while Matilde and Yasmín plunged deep into conversation once more, surprising Eliah, his partners asked him for an account of his time in Asmara. He finished telling them about the details of the meetings with the military leadership of Eritrea and asked them, without beating around the bush, to get out and leave him alone with his woman.

“Let’s go, Yasmín,” Alamán urged her. “I’m taking you home.”

“I’ll go later with Calogero and Stéphane.”

“No, now,” Alamán ordered, deepening his frown.

“I think Eliah is throwing us out. I don’t need to explain why to you, Matilde.”

Al-Saud saw Matilde blush. The awkward smile she gave Alamán and Yasmín melted his heart. Sometimes, when she smiled that way, with her red cheeks, and looked to the side, as though she were hiding her shame, Al-Saud shook with love. He wanted them to leave at once, he wanted her just for him, he wanted to make up for the bad taste Saturday had left in their mouths. In Asmara he had had time to relive the situation and finally came to the conclusion that he could use his cynicism and arrogance to battle with an egocentric and complex woman like Gulemale. Matilde, on the other hand, with her innate goodness and pure heart, sensed the perverse undercurrents of the African woman and was incapable of hiding her repulsion. He reproached himself for not having protected her from Gulemale’s malevolence and he was furious with himself for having prioritized his work.

He walked his guests to the hall and, when the house was empty, took Matilde by the waist, drew her to him and bent down to rest his forehead on hers.

“I’m still dying to make love to you. And you?”

“Me too.”

“A moment ago I had a fantasy. When I saw you lying on the pillow in the music room, while you were talking to my sister, I wanted you so much and I imagined us making love right there, on the cushions.”

“What music was playing while you were thinking such naughty things?” she asked him as she slipped her hands under his shirt and excited him by dragging them over his hard stomach.

“Mike had put on a symphony by Mahler,” he said, and squeezed her bottom until it hurt and she cried out, but she didn’t ask him to stop; she withstood the rough massage by digging her nails into his arms. “But when I make love to you in a few minutes, I don’t want there to be any music, because then I won’t hear when you moan, which drives me crazy, or when you say my name without realizing it, or when you ask me for more.”

“Eliah…”

“Are you excited?” Matilde nodded, her forehead still on his. “Let’s go.”

They ran upstairs. Al-Saud cornered her against a wall, in the hall, next to the door to the music room, and kissed her, blindly. It was a prelude to what they would share later, completely naked on the psychedelic print rug, surrounded by pillows; a night of sex in which, however they tried, they couldn’t get close enough to show the magnitude of what they inspired in each other, the irrational need to have one inside the other, to possess the other completely in both body and soul. It was a night of new experiences. Al-Saud made use of his entire body—his penis, his hands, his tongue, his fingers and his breath—to drive her to new, unknown heights of pleasure and to make her scream. He made her get on all fours and took her from behind, provoking three consecutive orgasms, while he venerated her tarantula bottom. He said to her in French, “Give me my
petite tondue
,” and made her spread her legs so he could taste her. And then Matilde tasted him and made him shudder. And, finally, when they made love on the rug and Matilde pulled her face away, gasping for air, he fell on her lips and penetrated her with his tongue with the
same cruelty with which he thrust into her, suffocating her. They were exhausted, sweaty, worked up, he was still on top of her, inside her; her breasts bumped against him with her violent inhalations, and the vapor of the fragrances that exuded from their bodies—her baby perfume and his Givenchy Gentleman—mingled with the smell of sex in the air.

Eliah sat up, leaning on his forearm, and brushed the damp strands of hair off Matilde’s forehead, her eyes still closed. He liked the feeling of their tangled legs, their touching abdomens. He kissed her eyelids with a gentleness he hadn’t employed during the sex.

“I love you, Matilde. I love you more than I ever imagined being able to love another human being.”

Matilde didn’t dare to open her eyes for fear that they would leak tears. Like a blind woman, she lifted her hand and caressed his forehead, touching a tuft of hair, which fell and tickled her, and traced out the shape of his nose and lips.