I escaped from the study room, I read her letter in the lavatories:
“Gather strength, sleep when you can, fortify yourself for the night to come, think of our future from this evening.”
I wound the chain of the flush around my neck; with each link, I kissed the next of Isabelle’s vertebrae. I tore up her instructions and threw them into the lavatory bowl. Quarter past nine. The clock in the great court marked an Olympian time, higher than the narrow time of the classrooms.
My physics book’s paper cover tore off, my retractable pencil rolled away beneath the radiator: the things I was leaving behind were fleeing from me. Outside in the corridor, day students were waiting for the second class, they were coming and going behind the glass door. They were not in love: their ease and their nonchalance oppressed me.
“You’re being spoken to,” said a girl.
I was sleeping during the cosmography class.
“She’s been ill,” said the girl. “She fainted in the hall. We don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
I went back to sleep.
After cosmography came ethics, through which I also dozed. Eleven twenty-five, eleven thirty, eleven thirty-five. I could see our reunion in the broad angle of that eleven thirty-five. My awaking had been that of an undisciplined sentry. I powdered my face beneath my desk lid; in my powder compact mirror I discovered what Isabelle would love and what she would not. The bell was ringing, pupils roaring, I had a plan.
“Yes, two roses. . two red roses. Go to the best florist. .”
“What size?” asked the day student.
“Whichever are the prettiest. Yes, if you like: for a teacher. Smell them before you buy. Pink roses, ideally.”
“Leave me to it,” said the day student, “you can count on me.”
Other day students were slashing at my face with their scarves, their gloves; they were pushing me, dragging me toward the forbidden gate. I turned on my heeclass="underline" I had someone.
Tucked beneath the roof, the music room retained the animal heat of the hundred girls who had practiced there hour after hour. I went inside. I flopped down at a desk. I could hear the sound of water dripping into a basin, I listened for each drop to fall. She did not know where I was, loving her. I wanted her to come up here because I could not imagine she would not foresee this. Twenty to twelve. . I counted to six between two drops of water. Her step.
She was trampling on my heart, my belly, my forehead even before she came in. A city of light was coming toward me. This must be some devastating enchantment. I guessed that she was looking for me through the glass while I had been picturing her in the darkness beneath my eyelids. I did not look up, I did not emerge from the folds of my widow’s weeds. Crows scattered, frost whitened the hazels. She was coming, she was breathing through my lungs.
“I’ve looked everywhere for you,” said Isabelle.
Isabelle appeared behind me, she sobbed with happiness. She sat down on the bench.
We loved and we were holding each other: we held each other balancing on a wild rose petal. She considered my lips, she touched them with one rough hand:
“Is it you, really you?”
The hand was seeking truths on my eyelids.
Her face dropped, her face descended lower than my breasts.
“Your face is too far away,” I said.
“I’ve torn your dress,” said Isabelle.
She fixed my dress with a pin, she carried out her repairs while I breathed in the perfume of memories in her hair.
“Someone’s coming!”
We sprang apart, we each ran to hide in a different corner. An accompanist turned the key to her room. She passed by, drew away again, peaceful and statuesque.
“The monitor told me to take you to the doctor at four o’clock,” said Isabelle.
I ran into her arms as she ran to mine.
“Quarter to twelve!” said Isabelle. “Come on, come on. .”
We fell together on the steps to the stage.
“Quarter to twelve, Thérèse!”
I hesitated, for my fingers were stained with ink.
“Don’t stop me!” I said, out of nervousness.
I was afraid of demeaning her by lifting up her skirt.
“Almost ten to twelve, Isabelle!”
“If you don’t speak more softly we’ll be caught,” said Isabelle.
I lifted up her skirt; Isabelle shivered against my temple.
I ventured beneath the crumpled skirt: her underpants frightened me. She was quite indecent beneath her dress. My hand advanced between skin and jersey.
“Let me do it. Don’t look if it shocks you,” said Isabelle.
I looked.
She lifted herself up, she released my hand.
“Such impossible underpants,” she said.
The hand of one entranced tugged them off, stuffed the garment into the pocket of her smock. Isabelle revealed herself there on the steps.
“They were gripping you tightly, my golden lamb. You’re all rumpled. You feel my cheek there on you, my darling Mongolian. I’m combing you, untangling you, teasing you, my little brazier. . You’re glowing Isabelle, you’re glowing. .”
I stood up, I glared at her.
“Come back. . Don’t leave me.”
“Are you sure?”
I was sadistic. Waiting and making her wait is a delicious perdition.
“What if someone discovers us,” I dreamed aloud.
“I can’t wait any longer,” whimpered Isabelle. Her hands were clutching at her face.
I fell to my knees before the medallion, I gazed rapt at the shining in her tangle. I ventured in like a smuggler, my face first. Isabelle gripped me between scissoring legs.
“I’m looking; I’m caught,” I said.
We waited.
Sex was filling our minds. Isabelle was split from head to toe. An incalculable number of hearts were beating in her belly, against my head.
“Yes, yes. . slower. I said slower. . higher. No. . lower down. Almost. . almost there. . Yes. . yes. . That’s almost it. . Faster, faster, faster,” she said.
My tongue was searching in the salty darkness, in the sticky darkness, over fragile flesh. The more I labored, the more mysterious became my efforts. I hesitated around the pearl.
“Don’t stop. I tell you that’s it.”
I was losing it, regaining it.
“Yes, yes,” moaned Isabelle. “You’re there, you’re there,” she cried in ecstasy. “Go on. Please. . there. . yes, there. . just there. .”
Her anguish, her mastery, her orders, her contradictions were confusing me.
“You don’t want to guide me,” I said, alone outside our universe of fantasy.
I spoke to her between the lips of her sex.
“I’m doing nothing else,” she said. “You’re not thinking about what you’re doing.”
“I’m thinking too much,” I said.
Tears of my sweat are soaking her pubic hair.
“Teach me. . teach me. .”
“Lift your face, look.”
Lying on the steps of the stage, Isabelle sought within herself, found it.
“Come closer, look, look. That’s it. If you lose it, you’ll find it again. Oh, oh. . No. Not now. You! You!”
I looked through her fingers’ angle at her gilded hair, I shivered with the shivering of the muscles in her hand. The finger was twisting. Soon I would spew out the delights of her orgasm.
Her neck tensed, her mind was elsewhere. Her eyes opened: Isabelle was staring at paradise.