apprehended
the mayor’s eldest daughter is more to the point. Circling around the table, dishes balanced dangerously in one hand, she sees a butter knife making its way towards the jar of preserves. Aha! she cries, grabbing with her free hand her sister’s brown wrist, the butter knife flashing wildly like a fish twisting in a beak. Let go, Emma says. I’m still eating. No, her sister says. You let go. Let go of the knife. But Emma is not yet finished with her breakfast. She would like to spread some jam on her last piece of bread. If she cannot spread her jam, like a lady, she will simply have to dunk her crust into the jar itself. So, forgetting the knife, she reaches out to grasp the lovely, golden, glowing jar that sings its siren song from across the table. The eldest daughter perceives with alarm the younger’s intent. The cudery clatters, the dishes sway. Take these! The mayor finds himself responsible for the china. And still pinching the brown wrist in one hand, his eldest daughter confiscates the treacherous jampot. She holds it up above her head, away from the clamorous hands of her sister, and looks down, as if from a great height, at her father’s puzzled face. Don’t you see? she asks.
tell me
you must see, the photographer pleads. You must see how you are — compromising— His hands fly up from his pockets, fluttering with urgency, making all the arguments that language has failed to provide him with. Madeleine notes this carefully, the articulateness of his hands. He has become, quite suddenly, interesting to hen She grows shy in his presence. She is curious about everything he does. Wrecking? Madeleine asks, as his hands wring the air. Destroying? Together they stand at the edge of the lawn. She is spreading,1 her newly washed drawers across the privet hedge to dry. How white they appear against the green, looking as if they might rise g up at any moment, like sails, and pull with them the privet hedge, I the velvety lawns, the grand house with its carpets and curtains. | Only a great gust of wind is needed, and all will be unmoored. Madeleine must concentrate on this, the white against the green, so as not to gaze too long at the photographer’s face, or his talkative hands. Yes, Adrien admits, exhausted. You are destroying everything. He means that the widow is unhappy. She is unhappy because the girl continues to refuse her. Every night, they gather in her drawing room; every night, the candles are lit, the tripod’s spindly legs are spread, the performers are placed in their humiliating poses; every night, the girl lifts her paddle (his cheek, her hand, smack! was the sound) and freezes. Madeleine nods, pretends to listen. She would like to be having a different conversation. She would like to ask, Do you chew anise seeds? And is that you I hear sometimes, singing beneath your breath? Maybe they could take a turn around the garden. Maybe he could invite her inside, for a drink of water. What gives your shirts their nice smell? She wants to say, Tell me. She wants to know. Was it like—? Did you feel—? She will send us away, the photographer says.
taste
special delivery! Mother sings out, clutching a jar in each of h hands. But the mayor opens his door no more than a crack. Mother smiles at him shyly. It’s pear, she says. Your favorite. The crack widens by a hair. Madame, the mayor begins, I am a supporter of local business— Indeed you are! she cries. Last month you bought a dozen jars! And presenting her gifts, she says, Do not think I have forgotten. The door creeps farther open, then closes with a slam. Mother stumbles backwards. She stares at the mayor’s front door; she frowns at this most uncivic display. The red door swings open once again. The mayor has been replaced by his sour-faced daughter, her jaw set, hejr feet planted. Old enough, Mother thinks, to be married by now, and bullying someone other than her father. Good morning, Mother ventures. What do you want? the daughter replies. To leave a token, Mother says, of my appreciation for the mayor. And she holds up each golden specimen for her to see. Preserves! the daughter snorts. Just as I thought! She folds her arms across her narrow chest: We are not interested. The things you make — they have a queer taste. Mother, looking in dismay at her jars, cannot muster a reply. The mayor’s daughter takes advantage. She observes, as she closes for the last time the door, But why should you care whether we like your preserves? You have so many customers in Paris.
naps
the flatulent man is very tired. His pale face has turned grey. Two dark circles seep from beneath his eyes, like drops of ink dissolving in a bowl of milk. It is necessary now to take naps. Every afternoon he goes off hunting for them. Sometimes he is lucky: once, behind the gatehouse, in a cool damp spot that smelled of clay; another time, in a corner of the kitchen garden, abandoned to the eggplants. He creeps up on these places. He makes himself thin as a shadow. When he wakes, he expects to find himself squinting into the sun. He expects that a long afternoon has passed, that the sun has moved across the sky and found him, its light slanting across his ” face, staining the inside of his eyelids. So he is surprised, when he wakes, to discover himself still in shadow, to see only the green sweating flagstone of the gatehouse, its surface alive with insects; or the dark, hairy depths of the tomato vines. And when he draws himself up onto his elbows, he will often hear a rustling, will catch a glimpse of white stocking disappearing into the foliage, or the flash of a silver watch chain. He wants to cry out, Wait! But the two are doe-like creatures; they seek him out and stare, then flee, their white tails showing. They spring off into the underbrush, off to their quarrels, their little anxious tasks, their acts of love, before he can stop them and say: At night, with the gravel rattling overhead — I have difficulty sleeping.
poem
looking at him, the man asleep in the garden, Adrien says, One time I touched his face. Madeleine, at his elbow, finds her eyes watering at the thought of this. He offers her the nice-smelling sleeve of his shirt. Can you see? he asks, pushing aside a branch, pushing the hair from her face. The sight makes her suffer. There he is, her enemy, on the ground as if dead: he who has, without knowing, without even trying, replaced her in her own affections. This makes the concession all the more galling to her, this unconsciousness. Yet the beauty of him asleep, arm thrown out, mouth open — if only she knew a poem! If only her hands and fingers could speak for her, making eloquent shapes in the air as Adrien’s do. It is with one of these fingers that he tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. She turns to him, full of speech. But her hands are struck dumb, and the only words that occur to her are: Orchard. Swallow. Bell.