The following morning, after taking the children to school, Jonathan sat down in a café and checked his email. Those organising L’Atelier d’écriture had invited him to an interview in a week’s time. Megi said he should try as long as he could manage to fit the job around his domestic duties. He couldn’t count on her – she had masses of work. He congratulated himself on having already at least found a nanny.
He was opening the document with the notes he had taken with the course in mind, when Andrea appeared in his thoughts. The film of their meetings began to roll again; the recollection of her warm lips sent a hot wave through him. It was unusual in that this film had no continuation, unlike his transitory fascinations with other women during his recent decade of monogamy. What would have been the beginning of a script leading to explicit consummation broke off at an innocent kiss. It left him in a rapture he could not recall – or perhaps he hadn’t felt before.
He flicked at the casing of his laptop. There was something narcotic about the woman; the very fact that he was dreaming about the smell of her and not her rump was a bad sign.
His cell rang. Jonathan started, immediately on edge.
“It’s me,” he heard.
“Megi?” He barely calmed his voice. “Your number hasn’t come up.”
“I’m calling from work. Listen, I’m not going to manage to take Antosia riding today. I’ve got to hand in the report by tomorrow.”
“I’ll take her, no problem.”
“Thank you, darling!”
Pssss… The air started to go out of his scented visions of Andrea.
“Are you there?” asked Megi.
“I love you.” He heard his own voice.
“And I love you,” she reassured him hurriedly. “I’ve got to finish. Got a meeting.”
Jonathan arrived at the school too early. The playground was still empty, although a hubbub had started in the building like in an enormous beehive. He sat down on the wall next to a few mothers.
“…a trip to the farm, they’re asking parents to help look after the children,” a beautiful Italian was saying in a heavy accent. At a distance it sounded as though she were speaking in her own language. “But I can’t go. I’m frightened of poultry and farm animals.”
“Do you swell up?” The Japanese woman spoke English like a five-year-old, syllable by syllable.
The Italian fell silent for a moment, disorientated.
“I’m not allergic,” she explained. “I simply panic.”
The Japanese woman froze and Jonathan observed the Italian; madwoman or not, she really wasn’t bad.
“And I find live fish repulsive.” A third woman joined in, her accent flat, Finnish. “And stuffed animals.”
“I dislike open spaces,” admitted the Japanese woman, “and closed rooms.”
Jonathan considered the technical aspect of this paradox and heard the familiar voice of the farmer from Ohio.
“Dupa [ass/pussy],” the American greeted him.
“Good afternoon,” replied Jonathan, making room for him on the wall.
“How are things with you?”
“Great. And you?”
“What a day, what a day…”
“We’re looking for parents who might be willing to go with the children to the farm,” the Italian began, as she approached them with the Japanese woman. “The school’s arranging a trip but they need someone to keep an eye on the children. With all those animals about. Maybe you could help?”
“Me?” the farmer made sure.
“You,” the Japanese woman nodded. Unintentionally, the concentration with which she spoke English made her sound cruel.
Once in the car, Jonathan asked the children how school had gone. They started telling him as he wondered how old Andrea could be. Probably over thirty, the age at which true women blossom, when the manner of a woman is superimposed on the looks of a girl – the thing that excited him most.
He overtook a Peugeot which was manoeuvring clumsily and registered the noise coming from behind.
“Stop arguing,” he muttered automatically.
“Then tell him to stop copying me!”
“I’m not copying her.” Tomaszek was cross.
“And what did you do today, son?” Jonathan changed tactics.
“We copied squirrels,” answered the boy.
“Ha, ha,” said Antosia. “Hiding nuts?”
Jonathan pulled away from the lights. Andrea was shapely and slim while also being so appetizingly full-figured that he wanted to squeeze her.
“No, no!” Tomaszek grew more and more annoyed. “We walked behind them, you know, behind them…”
“You followed them?” Jonathan prompted.
“Exactly!”
He didn’t even know whether she had any children. He knew it had not left a trace on her figure; nowadays forty-year-olds looked better than twenty-year-olds. Megi, having given birth twice, had a better figure than before. Why then, when thinking about his wife, had he for some time been changing the letters in the word “sexy” to “sensible”?
Andrea had small breasts and beneath them a narrow waist and round hips.
“Daddy, the lights.”
“Yes, yes, the lights.”
“They’re green,” Antosia explained patiently. “You can go.”
“Oh, right!”
Objectively, it was easy to admire Andrea. She was beautiful, intelligent, witty, and delicate. Her legs were not very shapely but they were very long. The few wrinkles only added to her charm. The trophy wife of the guy chased by most of the women in the Commission.
She could have anybody. He was an idiot to think about another man’s wife so much.
“So what did the squirrels do?” he asked.
And at that moment a text from her arrived.
When the front door banged shut and the children ran to greet Megi, Jonathan went downstairs and kissed his wife on the cheek. “You haven’t put the shelves up, you haven’t made sure Antosia is doing her homework, you forgot to buy the meat for tomorrow…” he heard.
He discreetly hid the cell in his pocket. He knew the text by heart anyway: “Enjoyed talking to you, Andrea.”
That night he slept with his hands behind his head, his underbelly restless. Why had he flirted with Andrea? Why had he thoughtlessly replied, “Would willingly do so again”?
6
L’ATELIER D’ECRITURE was located in a nineteenth-century apartment. The way in was up some stairs, passing the stone sculptures in a little garden.
The woman who met Jonathan had silver-gray hair and spoke perfect French. She set a few subtle traps in their conversation but luckily he knew the French idioms and the books she mentioned. He threw in a handful of titles on literary theory, quoted the contents of articles he had recently read in professional publications until her face lit up. She was over fifty but so attractive that her gray hair seemed merely flirtatious.
“You’ve got a group of seven. That’s how many registered but things can change. People generally drop out during the course.” She got up and held out her hand to him with a smile.
“Thank you, Mme Lefebure.”
“Cecile,” she corrected.
Leaving L’Atelier d’écriture Jonathan made his way along the main axis of the city straight to the stone arch crowned with a sculpture of galloping horses, which stood on the wings of pavilions housing museums and a nightclub. Despite the monumental grandeur of the building, the area was cosy. Mobile stalls selling waffles were parked on the square, cyclists circumnavigated the arch, strollers sat eating sandwiches and reading on the grass and on the steps.