Thérèse and Isabelle (5 page)

“Parted, us? You're mad. Anyway, not before the summer holidays.”

“You'll see. My mother, Isabelle, my mother . . .”

I stopped short.

“Your mother what?”

“She has to have me near her all the time . . .”

“They will not part us,” said Isabelle.

Our lips were reconciled, the pleasure of our kiss went on.

Someone was rattling our door, entering the cubicle next to ours; they were not after us. Tip-tapping on the cement floor betrayed that the little girl had held on 'til the very last minute. She was pulling up her apron, her skirt, her petticoat. I closed
my eyes, dispelled the hairless sex of this unknown child. The rags of my flesh fell upon lace. I opened my eyes, saw in Isabelle's that I had betrayed her for a flash of white knickers. The child relieved herself but we were embarrassed by the endless flow into the toilet bowl. I guessed this memory would stay with us. She slid off the seat, got to her feet, closed the door carefully.

“Speak Thérèse.”

“. . .”

I shall not allow you the nonsense you are after. Be quiet. Hold me tight. You are a village of five hundred souls, I am a village of five hundred souls. Hold tight, hold tight.

“Oh,” I say, looking through the heart shape, “the girls have gone in. All of them . . .”

“Don't care. I'll say that I was ill and you, you'll think of something.”

“What shall I think of?”

“A lie,” said Isabelle.

“Weren't you ill in the refectory? I want to know.”

“I told you.”

That lock of hair will always be a mad slash above her eyes. Isabelle was kissing me all over. She was covering me with decorations, I overwhelming her with medals. The spring in her tangle was mingling with the spring in mine.

“I can't go on.”

“I can't go on.”

We weaken, we are dulling the sexes hidden beneath the tangle. Isabelle's head drops onto my shoulder. I have a falcon on my shoulder, I am the Grand Falconer.

“Enough,” she says.

“You were saying that last night.”

“We have to go out separately. I'll go first.”

Only when I have set three embossed kisses on her apron belt.

“Keep this. It will be a link between us until tonight,” said Isabelle.

She held out her arm, she unfastened her wristwatch for me.

A fly buzzes away; it's a departure. I see Isabelle walking away from the heart-shaped slot. The schoolyard dust has her feet, the tortoiseshell pins have her hair, the air possesses her lungs which I will not see, which I cannot hold against my breathing.

The concierge was ringing the first hour of lessons, the day students were running into the great courtyard, boarders slamming their locker doors, a little one bringing flowers to her teacher; the new monitor was questioning me in a corridor, thought I had been practicing scales in the music room, made me repeat the same lie, picking at her cotton gloves, clutching her packet of letter paper to her chest, she left to go into town, to the post offices, the park benches.
The concierge's arm rising, falling, ringing our return to school, setting our teeth on edge. A girl also asked me: Where were you? I said farewell to the monitor, to a friend—I had chosen my life—I slipped off in the direction of the study room. When I was bored—I was often bored for I did no work—I would open my desk and look through the labels on my rows of books; I felt that my lazy books were asleep on their feet like their owner. I had written the authors' names on the labels. I would cross my arms, listen for a long time, and in the end I would hear the murmuring of ancient tragedies.

“May lily!”

The few stems that made up the bouquet were lying on my leather pencil case. I could see a green and white crucifix, among leaves and flowers, laid out on my pencil case. The gift hardened me: I was too happy. I closed my desk again, locked my mind away deep inside, I returned to
my desk. The bouquet had not vanished. She had given me flowers from a novel, she had left spear-tipped leaves and lucky May lily as one does when abandoning a child in a basket. I fled to the dormitory with my treasure.

I was walking on ocean currents, I advanced, taking care of my crystal feet, of the flowers in my fist. I went into Isabelle's box, I skipped the first hour of class for her. Her cell felt liberated, like my grandmother's bedroom the day they took away her coffin.

I want Isabelle. Let her come back, since the undertakers haven't snatched her from me. I wait for her within the four corners of this hearse, I breathe the smell of her bedspread, I wait for her with mourning in my breast. The headmistress will inspect the cells, will find me on Isabelle's bed, will expel me. We will be parted. I cannot leave her bed. I am trapped. What will we do tonight?

I made up a story of dizzy spells; I lied to the teacher, to the other girls; I slipped into the class, into the lesson; I made up more than necessary. I was thinking of Isabelle, I was tormenting myself behind my pile of books.

My mother gave in, but she gave in with bad grace. My mother has said it time and again, my mother will take me back before the holidays if she misses me, if she gets bored. If she were not married, I would be the one begging her: anything, anything you want but not to live far away from you in a school. Now it is the reverse. She is married. We are apart. How long will we remain apart? The time is over when I would scratch in the dirt for her, when I would slip through barbed-wire fences. I used to steal potatoes for us, from the fields. She took all my goods and chattels from me, even my satchel and lunch box. She sold our rabbits for a pittance—such a shame—eight days before her wedding. That was the end of
my meadows. I used to insist that I was her fiancée. She would sigh. I didn't know what exasperation looked like. She married without getting engaged. I scrubbed our three steps but she wanted a merchant. I will not be her daily laborer, I will not be her factory worker bringing in the money. She sold the rag-and-bone man the ash drawer from our stove, that I used to empty into the henhouse while the first drops of coffee were falling in our cafetière, imitating soft tongue-clicking sounds. Where are our clothespins, our laundry blue? She threw it all out. Mademoiselle was getting married. She sold off everything. She has all she requires. She is a married woman. I have become a convent-school boarder: I have no home. A man divided us. Hers. Your mother would be so happy if you didn't call me “Monsieur” . . . I shall always call him “Monsieur.” Another piece of bread, Monsieur. No Monsieur, I don't like rare meat. Call him “father,” she says, after the
meal. Never. I prefer the refectory table where all our bread is shared. We thrust our hands into the bread basket, we do not say no thank you, yes please. I wandered about behind her: don't get married, don't get married . . . We would have done great things together: we would have been everything to each other. I would be cozy in her bed. She called me her little beggar; she would say: come nestle in my arms. She has a Louis XVI bed and she won't walk arm in arm with me anymore. Monsieur is between us. She wants a daughter and a husband. I have a demanding mother. I am locked up in a school, I don't walk behind them any longer on the evening promenade, I don't sleep in the room adjoining theirs any more. She wants me to swaddle her, she wants me to devote myself to her as soon as he has left. You are the only one in the world, I only love you in this world she tells me, but she has someone else. I have met Isabelle, I have someone too. I
belong to Isabelle, I no longer belong to my mother.

At the blackboard a girl was drawing lines, crossing out triangles, writing the first letters of the alphabet next to the angles. I kept away from geometry.

What will we do in the night to come? Isabelle knows. Tomorrow, in this class, in front of this desk, I will know what we have done. I stare at the small
b
. I shall quickly recall what we did last night. Everything we did before she picks up the cloth, before she rubs out the small
b
. I cannot remember all the details. We didn't do anything. I am unfair. She kissed me, she came to me. Yes, she came. What a world . . . She came to lie upon me. I throw myself at Isabelle's feet. I can hardly remember what we did and it is all I can think about. What will we do tonight? Another girl rubs out the triangle, small
a
, small
b
, small
c
.

By four o'clock, my fever was mounting. Unleashed, the girls launched themselves
into the corridors, their mouths full of soft white rolls.

I will come into the study room on tiptoe, I will drop my hand onto her shoulder, I will take her by surprise, I will whip her with my question. What will we do tonight?

I got there but I did not go in. People are working, officiating. I can hear the humming of their effort through the glass door, I am waiting for the right moment to appear, to play casual. I cannot see Isabelle there in supervised study. I shall enter like an invader. I entered like a felon.

“Quiet,” said a girl, without raising her head.

It was stricter than in church. Isabelle was studying at the first table near the platform. I sat down in my place, opened a book to be like her; I kept watch, I counted one two three four five six seven eight. I cannot approach her, I cannot distract her. A girl went up to Isabelle's table and, without any
hesitation, showed her an exercise. They were conversing, debating a point. Isabelle was living as she had lived before drawing me into her box. Isabelle was deceiving me, Isabelle fascinated me, Isabelle was starving me.

I cannot read now. The question recurs in each meander of the geography book. How can I use up the time? She turns her profile to me, she exposes herself, she does not know that I am drinking her in, she turns toward me, she will never know what she has given me. She speaks, she is far away, she works, she discusses: a colt gambols in her head. I am nothing like her. I will go to her, I will come between Isabelle and the other girl. She is yawning—she is so human—she pulls the pin from her twist of hair, pushes it back with the same gesture, her gesture in the lavatories. She knows what she will do tonight but she is not worried about it.

Isabelle leaned back over her work when
the girl left the study room. Isabelle had seen me.

I came down between the rows, squeezed tight by the walls of my joy.

“My love. You were there?” she said.

My head was empty.

“Bring your books over. We shall work together. It is stifling in here.”

I opened the window and looked stoically out into the schoolyard.

“You're not bringing your books?”

“That's impossible.”

“Why?”

“I could never work close to you. It is so strong . . .”

When she sees me and her face changes, it is genuine. When she does not see me and her face does not change that is genuine too.

“You really want me?” I ask.

“Sit down.”

“I can't.”

“My sweet.”

“Don't call me my sweet. I am afraid.”

“Sit down, let's talk.”

“I can't talk anymore.”

I sat down near her, I sobbed a soundless sob.

“What is it?”

“I can't explain.”

She took my hand beneath the desk.

“Isabelle, Isabelle . . . What shall we do during recreation?”

“We'll talk.”

“I don't want to talk.” I took back my hand.

“Tell me what's wrong,” Isabelle insisted.

“Don't you understand?”

“We will be together again. I promise you.”

Toward seven in the evening, some girls gathered around me, suggested a stroll, some gossip. I faltered, I separated myself from them without acknowledging it. I was not free and no longer their age. I froze: Isabelle was tidying her books, she was
close. The would-be truants and their temptations went off to another table. One tall girl standing alone before the open window was embroidering a handkerchief, her back to the sky. She raised her eyes, looked at me without seeing, she went on embroidering. I stayed at my desk. Isabelle was tidying her books yet the embroiderer was she.

My peach skin: the evening light in the playground at seven o'clock. My chervil: arachnean lace in the air. My sacred caskets: the trees' foliage with their breezy altars. What will we do tonight? The evening shades into the day, I see the evening in royal renaissance costume. The air cossets me but I don't know what we will do for our next night together. I hear noises, I hear seven-in-the-evening voices that embrace the thoughtful horizon. The glove of infinity has me in its grip.

“What are you looking at, Thérèse?”

“There . . . the geraniums . . .”

“What else?”

“The boulevard, the window—they're all you.”

“Give me your arm. Don't you want to?”

The evening came upon us with its velvet mantle down to our knees.

“We can't go arm in arm. People will notice, we'll be caught.”