Thérèse and Isabelle (12 page)

“Look up. Such a fuss about nothing,” said Isabelle.

A door opened, closed again.

“It's the couple!”

Isabelle stifled a yawn:

“Yes, a couple.”

She opened her thighs:

“Say if you don't want to.”

I threw myself at her sex. I would have preferred it to be simpler. I almost wanted to sew it back up all round.

“My darling trout, my beloved submarine pout. I'm coming back to you. I'm here. The couple has gone . . . We are alone . . . It's the pink brute. I love it, it devours me. I adore it without illusions.”

“You're biting me, hurting me,” said Isabelle.

“I admit it, my delicate, I admit it, my little burning flower.”

“Yes . . . like in the music room, like in the music room . . . Gently . . . gently . . . That's almost right. Almost, almost . . .”

“You're talking too much, Isabelle.”

I plunged my face back inside the holy image. I was licking, gulping, I stopped to rest but my rest was a mistake.

“Is that it?”

“That's it.”

I went back to work: I had a sun to light up. I saw what she was seeing and what she was listening to with the sight and hearing of our sex, I anticipated everything she was anticipating.

“Still . . . still . . .”

A cat was licking, a cat was blindly toiling and stroking away.

“Long, so long,” Isabelle intoned.

I was pressing on like a scratched record
circling round and round. Her pleasure was beginning in me. I came away for some air.

“They're listening to us, Isabelle!”

She closed her legs, seized up.

“Open the door, check,” said Isabelle.

I waited, crouching there in my clothes.

“Open the door, come back quickly. I'm waiting for you,” said Isabelle.

“The door is too far. You want me to start all over again!”

I became my most winning, I seduced the inmost folds with my finger's singing, I stroked the sex as I watched it in the mirror. I looked on. I could see the mist of someone breathing under the door and I could see it in the mirror too.

“Come and lie down with me,” said Isabelle.

“There's someone there. I saw them.”

“You're torturing me!” said Isabelle.

I threw her jacket over her, pulled away the table and stepped outside. The brooding staircase.

“There's no one there,” I said.

“Don't touch me again,” said Isabelle.

Isabelle lay down on her front.

I stayed standing next to the bed. I couldn't decide whether to undress.

“I ought to strangle you,” said Isabelle.

She rolled over onto her back:

“Shall we go? Shall I get dressed?”

“Don't deny me your hair. Not a bun.”

“I'm redoing my hair. You're abandoning me,” said Isabelle.

“Oh, what have I done! There was someone there. I wasn't dreaming it,” I said.

“You were raving.”

I let myself drop onto the bed:

“Don't stop me . . . Take your hands away, forgive me. I will love you. You will teach me. Yes, I'm coming. You are beautiful. Your legs are beautiful too. I do want to. Take my finger. I'll give and receive, give and receive.”

I abandoned her again. I ran around the
room, I brought her clothes, which I threw at her and at her streak of saliva.

“You are infernal. I shall end up cursing you,” said Isabelle, suddenly strained.

“People can see us, they are looking at us,” I complained.

“Where?”

Isabelle rolled back onto her chest: she was shaking the bars on the bed.

“There's an eye. I can see it.”

“Be quiet, be quiet! Nearly . . . nearly . . . It's growing, it's growing,” Isabelle said.

She turned onto her back, she bent her legs and brought them right up to the dip of her stomach. She was consuming herself.

“It's my fault if you don't get anywhere,” I said.

“I won't get anywhere and it is your fault,” said Isabelle.

“In the window . . . the eye . . .”

Isabelle stood up, walked naked and dignified across the room.

“It's hunger, it's exhaustion, my poor Thérèse. I can't see a thing. There is nothing but dust and spiderwebs in that window.”

Isabelle got back into bed, she stretched out under the American eiderdown.

“You really don't want to get undressed? It's warm under here,” she said.

She wiggled her foot, she was provoking me beneath that satin!

“It's nice here . . . Why are you standing around?”

“I'm afraid of the eye.”

“So come here, then!”

Reaching out from the bed, she took my hand.

“Let's go, Isabelle. Let's escape from this house. I'll help you to dress on the landing,” I said tenderly.

She let go of my hand.

“A moment ago you were afraid of the landing.”

“Now it's the window,” I said.

She shrugged.

“You're afraid of everything.”

“I saw that eye.”

Isabelle was laughing.

“Don't you want us to go really?” I said.

She turned away from me.

I ran out onto the landing and she came to join me but she came naked. Her mound was pronounced. There could be a kind of personality in that, too.

“I'm cold because of you,” said Isabelle.

She was dragging me back by my hands.

“We'll do it together,” she said, in a voice that was meant to be encouraging.

“I'm frightened of the room.”

“Together . . . at the same time . . . We will call out as much as we like. We'll scream together.”

We went back into the bedroom.

“I would prefer to go.”

“That would be preferable,” said Isabelle.

She was getting dressed. Again I ran onto the landing, I left her to the intimacy
of her suspender belt, to her regret. But every atom of that house was a spy.

“Your handkerchief, your hat . . . Where are you, little scaredy-cat?”

She came to look for me on the landing.

Her hand swept over my hair, the mauve scent of her powder shivered my arms and legs into pieces.

She held out her hand, for me to lean on and get back on my feet. We kissed.

“Let's look once more,” said Isabelle.

Abandoned, the place had reassumed an air of innocence.

We felt our way down through the darkness of the staircase; we managed not to crush the little, fluttering wings of our reconciliation, we took the spring back to its source.

“You had a room with two beds . . . Is that correct?”

“A folding bed and a double,” said Isabelle.

“Have you any money?”

Isabelle held out her money and I held out mine.

“Which should I take?”

“Both.”

“Yes, both,” said Isabelle.

“Did you find it a good bed?”

Mme Algazine looked at us. She was counting the notes.

“Yes,” I said dully, “it was good.” Isabelle gave her hat a punch.

“No. Your beds are not good,” said Isabelle.

Mme Algazine scratched her chin with our folded notes.

“We are in a hurry. Please, open the door,” said Isabelle.

Mme Algazine went on tickling her chin with the notes.

“Was the port not good?”

“Excellent but we must be going,” said Isabelle.

“The door is open,” said Mme Algazine, by way of farewell.

“We still have half an hour left to buy things. We mustn't dally,” said Isabelle.

“What things?”

“You'll see,” said Isabelle.

Her gloved hand seized mine.

“Give me your bag . . . so I can carry it.”

“You like that, carrying my bag?” she asked.

The evening light at six o'clock was not crisp; the houses were growing bored.

I plucked a betrothal flower out of a clump of privet, in the street with the charcoal depot, I stuck it in Isabelle's fist.

“. . . I was counting the nights we'll have until the summer holidays. We'll have plenty,” said Isabelle.

She led me into the best tearoom in town.

The tables were not yet cleared away, the ring of chatter lingered, the scent of blond tobacco mixed with the scents of the departed customers.

“Why are we here? Are you hungry?”

“No,” said Isabelle.

“Me neither.”

“Give me my bag, though,” said Isabelle.

I gave it to her and fled from the patisserie.

At last I bought the two roses I had wanted for her. I saw her again while I was at the till, paying for the flowers. Isabelle was looking for me, biting her lip. My love was clear eyed but it was love. I hid the flowers inside my jacket.

“Very clever!” she said. “Why did you run out?”

We were going back up the rue de la Maroquinerie.

“Let's stop here. Choose the bag you like best and I'll buy it for you. I will carry it when we're alone in the corridors at school,” I said.

“It's as if you were giving me a keepsake, as if you were going away. Don't buy me anything,” said Isabelle.

The shop assistant was setting a box calf drum in a corner of the shop window.

“Let's go back to school. It's time to go,” said Isabelle.

“I would but you're not moving.”

“I'm frightened of the future,” said Isabelle.

“Frightened . . . you!”

“I'm miserable, Thérèse.”

The town snapped in two.

“If you're unhappy I will die.”

“Don't talk. Hold my arm tight, look at the window display. We must go back to school but I feel as though we mustn't. I'm frightened,” Isabelle said again.

“Let's leave school. We won't die of hunger.”

“They'll catch us. We would be parted straight away. Keep me warm,” said Isabelle.

“Don't be unhappy.”

“Look! In the mirror. See . . . they're pointing at us,” said Isabelle.

It was raining threatening fingers. Still,
our confidence was enough to charm the cobbles. The azure sky between far-off branches mussed our hair.

“Are we running away?”

“Where to?” said Isabelle.

“To Madame Algazine's.”

“That was a bad idea.”

Our school reappeared; we felt our connection to the great, nameless family that would be studying in the study rooms before dinner. I went by the dormitory for the sake of the roses, and hid them in my dirty laundry bag.

At seven o'clock, Isabelle came into the refectory following the others.

I threw my napkin under the table, I bent down to whisper that I would carry her handbag and that I would carry the zephyr too, if the zephyr were tiring her.

She was coming. I counted her steps down the long passage. Fifteen drumrolls thundered in my heart. How many times was I put to death during her coming. The
same citadel of love was nearing: my throat contorted.

Isabelle was watching the ardent blue: Isabelle loved me at the hour of sunset on the stained-glass window. The monitor called my name from the far end of the refectory.

“Do wake up,” said another girl.

Isabelle was also calling me; Isabelle was sucking the colors from me:

“Do you love me? Do you still love me?” I entreated with every look.

The monitor told me that I should not go to study, that I should go up to the dormitory to rest, that it was an order from the head monitor.

The day was declining, my cell fading away, down blowing from the lips of my absent beloved. Night was taking over; night, our swans' wing covering. Night, our canopy of gulls.

I focused my flashlight, shone it on the flowers I had bought, savored the air of
occasion. The night drew outlines around the roses in the gardens outside.

I began the leisurely toilette of a bride-to-be; as I soaped, I hid fronds of orange flowers between my legs, under my arms; I paraded a trail of cool scent around my cell; I proceeded into the passage with the scepter of our future, I entered Isabelle's cell: her belongings were austere, her bed abandoned. I slipped out of time. I stayed waiting, my face hidden in my hands.