‘Come inside me.’
‘Is it safe?’
‘My period is tomorrow.’
They woke early, took it in turns to shower and then, enjoying the feel of each other’s clean skin, made love again. Nicole took another shower while Luke shaved. She walked out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, leaving wet footprints on the floor. In the mirror Luke watched her looking intently at the photo of the demonstration in Belgrade.
‘This is very strange,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You have no idea when this photograph was taken?’
‘No. Why?’ Luke came and stood by her. There were a couple of bloody nicks on his jaw.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing to a woman near the front of the photograph. She had long black hair.
‘No!’ said Luke. ‘Can it really be?’
‘I think it is.’
‘I think it is too,’ said Luke, looking closely, shielding his eyes to stop sunlight reflecting on the glass. ‘It is you.’
‘It’s a coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘It’s incredible.’
Luke continued staring at the picture; reflected in the glass he could see Nicole dressing behind him. When she was ready they went out for breakfast, holding hands. A group of youths parted for them. It was market day on Richard Lenoir, the boulevard given over, normally, to baggy skateboarders. Stall holders were calling out the names of fruit, filling the air with the sound of strawberries, figs, raspberries, cherries. The sky was the colour of pale stone, as if, over the centuries, it had taken on the tones of the buildings below.
They walked to the Café Rotonde which everyone always referred to as the Kanterbrau because the sign advertising beer was larger than the one displaying the name of the café. An Alsatian stood guard, that is, it lay in the doorway, on the brink of sleep. When Luke was a boy Alsatians were regarded as vicious, dangerous: the man-eaters of the dog world; now, in the wake of the savage ascendancy of the Rottweiler and pitbull, they seemed dopey, loving. The only thing you had to worry about was stepping on their tails and disturbing their rest.
The waiter took their order and came back with orange pressé, café au lait, croissants, water.
‘Drinking coffee, eating one croissant and looking forward to having a second,’ said Luke. ‘That’s what I’m doing now.’ His eyes felt taut from lack of sleep. There was a tension between his relaxed body and the strained, gritty feeling of his eyes, but mainly he was aghast at the metamorphosing power of their having made love. It changed everything. Not just him and Nicole but the world around them. The smallest actions — the garbage collectors loading poubelles on to the back of the truck, the waiter carrying trays of coffee, the guy drinking a glass of red wine at the bar — celebrated the happiness of the world as it converged on the couple who had just spent their first night together. Luke looked across at a young man busy writing in a notebook and felt sorry for him: he had only his book for company — even his coffee-cup was empty.
‘I have to go,’ Nicole said, gesturing for the waiter. She had an uncancellable appointment at the university.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Luke, touching her hair. ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and last night we made love, on our first date. I can’t believe my luck.’
‘Maybe it’s not luck.’
‘What then?’
‘I don’t know.’ She ran the two words together, as in ‘dunno’. Luke was a little disappointed: at that moment, especially in the wake of Nicole’s finding herself in the photograph in his apartment, even a word like ‘destiny’ or ‘fate’ would not have embarrassed him.
‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Are you leaving too?’
‘No, I’m going to stay here a little while.’
‘Then what do you do?’
‘I’m going to sit here and watch you walk away. Then I’m going to sit here and have another coffee which I shouldn’t have and which I’ll probably regret having. I’ll think about you, and then, just in case last night was a dream, I’m going to go home and lie in bed and hopefully fall asleep and dream it again.’
‘What will you dream?’
‘Of me pulling your dress over your head and seeing you naked for the first time, of you taking me in your mouth, the way you tasted when I first pushed my tongue into you, and how, as soon as you came, I came in your mouth too. Kissing you afterwards, then being inside you for the first time. .’
‘What a rude dream!’
‘Can you come tonight as well?’
‘In a dream?’
‘No, for real. Can I see you tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll stay in. I’ll cook. We’ll go to sleep early. We’ll sleep for ten hours.’
‘OK.’
‘The code is C25E,’ said Luke. Nicole wrote down the number. Her pen was white, decorated with dots that matched exactly the dark green ink. Love someone, thought Luke, love their possessions.
‘Are you not working today?’
‘I don’t have to go in till later. There’s very little to do.’
‘No football?’
‘I’m too tired. Aren’t you tired?’
‘Yes.’
She kissed him on the mouth, stood up and slalomed through the thicket of café chairs, shoving one with her hip, only slightly, once. He watched her go. Tennis shoes. Tanned legs. Lime green dress. Bare arms. Long black hair. Her.
He would always love watching her walk away, seeing her disappear into the Métro, around a corner or becoming lost in the crowd. Her floaty walk. Even when, years later, they parted for the last time, he would be the one to watch her walk away. It would be up to her to stand, to look at him and walk away, feeling his eyes on her: a final concession.
A bicycle messenger wearing a luminous bib — Speedy Boys — came in and ordered a coffee. The sun squeezed between clouds, flooding the café terrace with hot light. A bus shuddered to a halt and passengers began spilling out. Spotting a gap in traffic, a little dog wagged across the road. Luke remembered the utter passivity of the previous night, how neither of them had needed to make the slightest move towards each other, how, instead, they had simply waited. .