I sat up with infinite care, I felt completely new. My sex, my meadow.
“Say good night to me.”
Isabelle jumped.
“Say good night. .”
I turned the light on. I had seen the blood, I had seen my reddened hair. I turned it off.
She sat up on her knees in the bed and, naturally, I presented my curly-haired nest so she could bury her face in it. What could I say to her while her cheek was cradled there? She was spoiling me.
“I want to give,” I said.
“Be quiet.”
“I want to give.”
I turned the light on, looked down at my reddened hair.
“I’m ashamed,” I said.
“Ashamed of what?”
“Of the blood.”
“You’re silly.”
I went up to the curtain, I crossed one leg over the other, I posed, I turned the light on myself. I was naked: I wanted to be artificial.
“You’re upsetting me,” said Isabelle.
She stood up.
She was coming. She was hiding her face in her hands, her hair flowing down all on one side.
“Oh.”
I welcomed her into my arms. With my teeth I picked the dried blood from under her fingernails. I put her to bed.
I laid my little girl down, I lifted her head, patted the pillow, smoothed, freshened the bed.
“You are looking after me,” said Isabelle.
I was warming her foot on my breast. Isabelle was giving me a child. Now we would be making love, now I would be laying him back in the cradle. I have never wanted children other than the people I have loved. For me, they were love.
“I’m going, Isabelle.”
She was holding me back by the hips, with all her strength.
“I’ll scream if you go.”
I stayed.
“More supple,” she said to the hand that was no longer mine, that she was guiding.
I entered the old refuge.
“You’re nodding off,” she said.
My finger was dreaming, I was quietly wandering.
She put her arm on mine, I tingled with pleasure as our arms met.
You have to remove yourself in order to give. I wanted to become a machine that was not mechanical. My life was her pleasure. I looked beyond Isabelle, I was working inside the belly of the night. We drew into accord as we vanished together. The moan. She sat up, she frightened me. Already the shadow of that pleasure, already. Was she dying or indeed living? The rhythm would tell. I followed everything in her; with my mind’s eye I could see the light in her flesh. In my head there was another Thérèse, her legs open, thrown up to the sky, receiving all that I was giving to Isabelle.
“Come and rest,” she said.
I became a child again.
Living, stretched out, floating, parted, in contemplation, we could believe in eternal rest. The brook of solitude was so cooclass="underline"
“I want to tell you. .”
“You’re happy. Don’t question it,” said Isabelle.
We had put our nightgowns back on.
I said:
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m just living. And you?”
“I was listening to your heart. Such a prison. . Are you listening to it too?”
“I don’t feel sad,” said Isabelle.
I turned to face her:
“You’re not sleeping?”
“I was seeing us in a cinema. I was misbehaving, not being good,” said Isabelle.
“In a cinema. . That is strange. . It’s possible that reminds me of something. Yet it isn’t a memory. It’s as if I had been to this cinema that I don’t know,” I said.
“It won’t happen. We aren’t free,” said Isabelle.
“Let’s run away.”
“I’ve no money.”
“Me neither. We’ll sell what can be sold, then we’ll take the train, let’s try. We won’t starve to death.”
“We shan’t run away. We have to be here. We can have every night to ourselves if we are careful. Do you hate the school?”
“Not at all. I’m afraid they’ll make me leave. . Will you see me between your classes? Say, will you see me?”
She didn’t reply.
Two rosettes became one.
“Who told you?”
“I’ve always known,” said Isabelle.
“I’m hungry.”
She opened the drawer in her night table, without looking away she pushed a bar of dusty chocolate into my mouth.
“Eat,” said Isabelle, “eat and calm down.”
My cheek bumped against the flashlight on the pillow.
One after the other I lit up the palms of her hands, far from our union.
“I need you,” I said.
“I need you,” said Isabelle.
“Yes. Yes,” I moaned.
“Someone’s there,” said Isabelle, calmly.
She stood up, looked out into the passage.
“No one. No one was there,” said Isabelle.
She leaned over the bed. Isabelle was not going to lie down again.
She was frolicking between my thighs, she drew alarming figure eights, drawing them bigger and bigger, she was stroking as she bent over me.
Three fingers entered, three guests that my flesh swallowed up.
So she came back to bed, like the acrobat bending low who carries his partner balanced on his fingertip.
“You aren’t listening to me,” said Isabelle.
“I’m listening. You’re telling me little things, you have come back, you are inside me. The rain. . Oh, yes. . yes! I don’t hate it. It’s a friend. Yes, yes. . Let’s die together, Isabelle, die while you are me and I am you. I’ll stop thinking that we will be parted. Let’s die, don’t you think?”
“I don’t want to. I want this. I want to be deep inside you. Dying. . that’s too stupid.”
“If I had leprosy would you abandon me?”
“I don’t have it, you don’t have it, we haven’t got it. Why are you turning the light on?”
Isabelle took her hand away, she crossed her arms over her face.
“Would you leave me?”
She shrugged.
“Look at me,” I said.
“I’m looking with my eyes closed.”
“If I were to die tomorrow would you stay alive?”
She turned to me. She appeared within a frost-edged bramble each time she turned around like this.
“You would stay alive. You’re not answering.”
Isabelle pressed her hands together. Impulses, twitches were flying across her face: her spirit was in ferment.
“It’s a difficult question,” said Isabelle.
She would not open her eyes.
“Answer!”
“These questions are too big.”
Isabelle lifted her eyes. Now she was staring at me:
“Do you really want to die with me when you say that? Truly? You would really like us to die at the same time?”
Isabelle threw back her head. She was thinking hard.
“I don’t know anymore,” I said.
“Give me your hand,” she said. “No. . don’t give me your hand. Not now.”
“You are so beautiful. . I really would like to but I couldn’t. I can’t imagine you dead. You’re so beautiful. .”
“Think about us. Could you?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know anymore. It is good to be alive. And you? What about you?”
“Yet if we don’t want to be parted,” said Isabelle.
“You could?”
“We shall have to come around to it,” said Isabelle. “You couldn’t now, but I’m not cross with you. I never thought I would ask that of you. From a cliff. . one night. . together. .”
“It’s awful, what you’re saying.”
“How easily you frighten! With you, it wouldn’t scare me.”
“Don’t think about it, Isabelle.”