There are two other photographs on the desk: the larger frame holds a picture of his daughters, Alice and Esther, they are five and seven years old, sitting astride ponies, with their mother. The divorce is already under way. The third picture, black-and-white, shows three men, two of them are recognizably Lacan and Barthes. The youngest, in the middle, has the thick black hair of a twenty-year-old, he is smiling, holding a bulging file in his hand. Thomas is now the least identifiable. Piette took it at the Collège de France, in January 1978. It gives the impression that they are the best of friends, Lacan seems to be laughing at a joke the young psychology student has made. If anyone is sufficiently inquisitive to ask about it, he just says, “That’s me with Jacques and Roland.”
From his office, Thomas has heard the door to the gate opening, recognized the metallic click of Louise’s heels on the paving stones in the courtyard and the staircase, and has opened the door before she could knock. He does not really like displaying how eager he is to see her every time, but he is even less keen to affect patience.
She sees him on the landing and smiles. “What if it wasn’t me?”
“I don’t know anyone who walks like you.”
“I’ll sound different when I’m carrying a suitcase.”
“Which means?”
“Soon, as soon as I can find the courage, I’m going to talk to Romain. I’ll tell him I want us to separate. I’ll tell him about you too. Something inside me’s broken and it won’t come back together again. And it’s not just since we met. Do you still want anything to do with me, this madwoman with two children?”
“Yes.”
“Because you do realize I’m mad, don’t you?”
Thomas looks at Louise, smiles. “I’m very happy to have a madwoman. I’ve always wanted to take work home with me.”
ANNA AND YVES
• •
ANNA HAS NOT SEEN YVES again since Christiane’s party. He sent her a recent piece of writing, a play for four characters, and they have arranged to meet in a bistro on the rue de Belleville.
When Anna arrives, she looks around the room, sees him, and is amazed not to have recognized him. She thought he was taller, a ridiculous idea given he is sitting down, remembers a younger man, had not noticed how much hair had deserted his forehead. He is reading a magazine, has a cup of coffee, catches sight of her, smiles. The thrill that has gripped her every other time fails to materialize. She was as apprehensive about the sensation as she was looking forward to it, and the fact that she does not feel it frustrates and placates her at the same time.
She sits down and launches straight into criticizing the dialogue, the trajectory of the play, confessing that she prefers novels. He offers to show her his first noveclass="underline" he lives very close by, the coffee is much better at his apartment, she accepts. Walking beside him, the feeling grips her again, just as acute, and she welcomes it excitedly.
They cut across the tree-lined courtyard of a renovated apartment building, climb the stairs, and he opens the door to a spacious apartment with high ceilings and a warm masculine atmosphere. The huge, bright living room is littered with a jumble of things, movie lighting equipment, an écorché model in an opera hat, a driftwood sculpture. Anna walks over to the large bay window, looks at Paris gradually picked out by sunlight, the basilica of Sacré Coeur, Beaubourg to the south, the apex of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Yves rummages through a cardboard box, takes out a book, and hands it to Anna.
“I’ve found it. There you are. Sorry about the mess, Anna. I’ve only just moved in.”
“It’s huge.”
“Yes. Too big for me and my daughter.”
“Do you rent it?”
“No, I have too many different employers to keep a landlord happy. I’ve always had to buy. I live off my capital.”
So it is possible then, Anna thinks, quashed. She had pictured a dirty, dilapidated building, a small cluttered apartment, modest means, even slight embarrassment. She wanted him to be poor, wanted his poverty to make him unthinkable, she would have preferred having some excuse at hand, wanted to be able to say reproachfully: “Whatever sort of life could you offer my children?”
“I promised you a coffee. Over here.”
Anna cannot help smiling at the American-style kitchen: she and Stan have the same design, from the same Swedish supplier.
She walks ahead of him, he breathes in her perfume. She moves very slowly. Yves will learn later that when she cannot cope with tension, she slows her pace as if the moment itself were taking all her energy. Now she stops altogether, suffocating. Yves’s arms are around her, she does not push him away, his arms turn her, she pivots, Yves draws her to him, she half opens her lips, he takes them. Without a word, he leads her to the bedroom, she lets herself be led.
ANNA AND STAN
• •
THE DAY AFTER, an earthquake comes on an evening like any other. The children are in their bedroom, Lea drawing, Karl practicing his scales on the piano. Anna is preparing dinner and Stan is setting the table. Anna talks about her day: a young autistic patient said the word “chocolate” for the first time.
Stan does not ask many questions, listens to his wife, watches her affectionately. Talking is never an effort for Anna. The more tired she is the more she seems to ramble.
While she cooks, Anna has put her rings on the counter. They are all presents from Stan. Her narrow wedding band punctuated by thirty-three diamonds. A chunkier ring, an ancient-looking disk of yellow gold set with uncut rubies and sapphires and mounted on a band of white gold; she has never known what it cost, it was an unreasonable amount. Finally, a simple red-and-black agate pearl, mounted on a circle of silver, she chose it at a market in Avignon, when she and Stan still used to go to the theater festival, before the children were born.
Anna cuts up fennel, turnips, and zucchini, tosses them into a frying pan, sprinkles mild spices, and covers them with a glass lid that immediately steams up. The rice is boiling in a saucepan. A sad expression, tinted with irritation, hovers over her face. She feels as if, rather than wanting to be somewhere else, she already is somewhere else. Looking at her own life through a window.
She drains the rice and puts her rings back onto her wet fingers. She suddenly grasps the fact that if she leaves Stan, if he becomes involved with another woman, she would feel no jealousy at all. She knows everything about the life the woman would lead, Stan’s thoughtfulness, his least little consideration, she even knows what presents he would give her, would have no trouble recognizing them on the new girlfriend’s fingers, around her neck.
She puts the steaming rice into a bowl, also thinking of all the women Yves has known, women about whom she knows nothing. She pictures them happy, walking arm in arm, cleaving to him. These are fleeting images, but so violently sensual that they disturb her.
“What are you thinking about?” asks Stan.
“I’m so sorry,” Anna replies, spontaneously.
It is not an answer, it is an admission. If Stan realizes this, he does not show it, goes on pouring water into the children’s glasses.
“Are you thinking about your brother’s Fuch’s spot?”
Anna does not reply.
“It’s a really rare condition, you know. It could easily not happen to the other eye. He’ll just have to be vigilant, that’s all.”
“Karl, Lea, it’s ready.”
She has pulled herself together, her voice is cheerful.