They walked for a long time, pausing and hiding when they heard an occasional car, a farmer taking his cows home. Were they going in the right direction? To Paris? She didn’t know. But at least, she knew they were heading farther and farther away from the camp. She looked at her shoes. They were falling apart. Yet they had been her second best pair, the pair for special occasions, like birthdays and the cinema and visiting friends. She had bought them last year with her mother, near the Place de la République. It seemed so long ago. Like another life. The shoes were too small now, they pinched her toes.
In the late afternoon, they came to a forest, a long, cool stretch of green leafiness. It smelled sweet and humid. They left the road, hoping they might find wild strawberries or blueberries. After a while, they came upon an entire thicket of fruit. Rachel uttered a cry of delight. They sat down and gobbled. The girl remembered picking fruit with her father, when they had spent those lovely days by the river, such a long time ago.
Her stomach, unused to such lavishness, heaved. She retched, holding her abdomen. She brought up a mass of undigested fruit. Her mouth tasted foul. She told Rachel they had to find water. She forced herself up, and they headed deeper into the forest, a mysterious emerald world dappled with golden sunlight. She saw a roe deer canter through the bracken and held her breath with awe. She wasn’t used to nature, she was a true city child.
They came to a small, clear pond farther into the forest. It was cool and fresh to their touch. The girl drank for a long time, rinsed out her mouth, washed away the blueberry stains, then glided her legs into the still water. She had not gone swimming since that river escapade, and didn’t dare enter the pond completely. Rachel knew, and told her to come in, she’d hold her. The girl slipped in, grasping Rachel’s shoulders. Rachel held her under her stomach and her chin, the way her father used to. The water felt wonderful to her skin, a soothing, velvety caress. She wet her shaved head, where the hair had started to grow back, a golden fuzz, rough like the stubble on her father’s chin.
All of a sudden, the girl felt drained. She wanted to lie down on the soft green moss and sleep. Only for a little while. Only for a quick rest. Rachel agreed. They could have a short rest. It was safe here.
They cuddled close to each other, reveling in the smell of fresh moss, so different from the stinking straw of the barracks.
The girl fell asleep quickly. It was a deep and untroubled sleep, the kind she hadn’t had for a long time.
IT WAS OUR USUAL table. The one in the corner, on the right, as you came in, past the old-fashioned bistro zinc bar and its tinted mirrors. The red velour banquette formed an L. I sat down and watched the waiters bustling about in their long, white aprons. One of them brought me a Kir royal. Busy night. Bertrand had taken me here on our first date, years ago. It had not changed since. The same low ceiling, ivory walls, pale globe lights, starched tablecloths. The same hearty food from Corrèze and Gascogne, Bertrand’s favorite. When I met him, he used to live on the nearby rue Malar, in a quaint rooftop apartment that was to me unbearable during summer. As an American raised on permanent air-conditioning, I had wondered how he put up with it. At that point, I still lived on rue Berthe with the boys, and my dark, cool little room seemed like heaven during the stuffy Parisian summers. Bertrand and his sisters had been raised in this area of Paris, the genteel and aristocratic seventh arrondissement, where his parents had lived for years on the long, curving rue de l’Université, and where the family antique shop flourished on the rue du Bac.
Our usual table. That’s where we had been sitting when Bertrand had asked me to marry him. That’s where I’d told him I was pregnant with Zoë. That’s where I told him I had found out about Amélie.
Amélie.
Not tonight. Not now. Amélie was over. Was she, though? Was she really? I had to admit I was not sure. But for now, I did not want to know. I did not want to see. There was going to be a new baby. Amélie could not fight against that. I smiled, a little bitterly. Closing my eyes. Wasn’t that the typical French attitude, “closing your eyes” on your husband’s wanderings? Was I capable of that? I wondered.
I had put up such a fight when I had first discovered he was being unfaithful ten years ago. We had been sitting right here, I mused. And I had decided to tell him then and there. He had not denied anything. He had remained calm, cool, had listened to me with his fingers crossed under his chin. Credit card slips. Hôtel de la Perle, rue des Canettes. Hôtel Lenox, rue Delambre. Le Relais Christine, rue Christine. One hotel receipt after the other.
He had not been particularly careful. Neither about the receipts, nor about her perfume, which would cling to him, his clothes, his hair, the passenger seat belt in his Audi station wagon and which was the first clue, the first sign, I recalled. L’Heure Bleue. The heaviest, most powerful, cloying scent by Guerlain. It wasn’t difficult finding out who she was. In fact I already knew her. He had introduced her to me right after our marriage.
Divorced. Three teenage children. Fortyish, with silvery brown hair. The image of Parisian perfection. Small, slender, perfectly dressed. The right handbag and the right shoes. An excellent job. A spacious apartment overlooking the Trocadéro. A magnificent, old French name that sounded like a famous wine. A signet ring on her left hand.
Amélie. Bertrand’s old girlfriend from the Lycée Victor Duruy, from all those years ago. The one he had never stopped seeing. The one he had never stopped fucking, despite marriages, children, and the years going by. “We are friends now,” he had promised. “Just friends. Good friends.”
After the meal, in the car, I had transformed myself into a lioness, fangs bared, claws drawn. He had been flattered, I suppose. He had promised, he had sworn. There was me, and only me. She was not important, she was just a passade, a passing thing. And for a long while, I had believed him.
And, recently, I had begun to wonder. Odd, flitting doubts. Nothing concrete, just doubts. Did I still believe him?
“You’re crazy to believe him,” said Hervé, said Christophe. “Maybe you should ask him outright,” said Isabelle. “You’re out of your mind to believe him,” said Charla, said my mother, said Holly, Susannah, Jan.
No Amélie tonight, I decided firmly. Just Bertrand and me, and the wonderful news. I nursed my drink. The waiters smiled at me. I felt good. I felt strong. To hell with Amélie. Bertrand was my husband. I was going to have his baby.
The restaurant was full. I looked around at the busy tables. An old couple eating side by side, one glass of wine each, studiously bent over their meal. A group of young women in their thirties, collapsing with helpless giggles as a stern woman dining alone nearby looked on and frowned. Businessmen in their gray suits, lighting up cigars. American tourists, trying to decipher the menu. A family and their teenage children. The noise level was high. The smoke level, too. But it didn’t bother me. I was used to it.
Bertrand would be late, as usual. It didn’t matter. I had had time to change, to have my hair done. I wore my chocolate brown slacks, the ones I knew he liked, and a simple clinging fauve top. Pearl earrings from Agatha and my Hermès wristwatch. I glanced in the mirror on my left. My eyes seemed wider and bluer than usual, my skin glowed. Pretty damn good for a middle-aged pregnant female, I thought. And the way the waiters beamed at me made me think they thought so as well.