“We should like to hire one for about an hour,” Isabelle said.
A cage suspended from a ring swung to and fro, the bird inside giving little peeps beneath its china cupola.
“I see,” said Mme Algazine.
She tossed her pearls behind her, so they hung down her back.
“You are minors,” she said.
She pranced off into the courtyard. Isabelle ground her teeth. But she was coming back with a tender lettuce leaf, which she poked between the bars of the swinging cage. She headed back into the courtyard just as buoyantly.
I stood up, I called:
“Madame!”
“Right away, my little ones, right away,” she said condescendingly.
“Madame!” said Isabelle resolutely.
She reappeared once more.
“We should like to hire a room, I tell you.”
Mme Algazine opened her eyes wide:
“Why did you not say so when you came in, my little kittens?”
“We did say it.”
Sometimes the bright wings were battered against the cage bars; the wound in our minds was gray.
“You are minors. .? Obviously.”
“Yes,” we replied together.
“Are you boarders at the school. .? You are wearing the uniform.”
“We will pay you, we have the money,” said Isabelle.
“You’ll pay afterward,” said Mme Algazine.
Isabelle unbuttoned her cardigan but I put myself in front of her. Mme Algazine would see nothing of any chest beyond what was shielding it.
“Will you take a drop of port, will you want to eat a few teacakes in the room?”
“We will drink and eat whatever you like,” said Isabelle. “Show us the way.”
“Not shy are we. .?”
Mme Algazine opened the glass door, she pointed to the stairs with her necklace, which she handled as one would a hosepipe.
“Electricity is expensive, gas too, oil too, and matches too. Everything is expensive,” said Mme Algazine, in the voice of her true nature.
The staircase was dark. On the landing we passed decrepit rooms, folding beds that had burst open, we bumped into boxes of crockery, drifts of fallen plaster, ragged curtains. Mme Algazine showed us the way, her eyes sliding distractedly over everything.
“Yours will be the first door,” she said.
“Thank you, oh thank you,” said Isabelle.
“I’ll bring your port up to you shortly.”
Mme Algazine retreated, alone and old, down the sordid staircase.
Isabelle took the key from the keyhole, she went in first.
“Two beds!” she said.
She wanted to close the door but she could not quite manage. The key she threw at the mantelpiece, where it fell to the floor. She flung her boarder’s straw hat to the back of the room, pushed the table against the door.
“Take it off,” she said, reproachfully, “we aren’t paying anyone a visit here.”
She sent my hat flying at the mirrored wardrobe, she undid my hair.
“Lie down with me on the tiles,” she said.
My mouth met her mouth as a dead leaf meets the earth. We sank into that long kiss, we recited our wordless litanies, we were greedy, we smeared our faces with the saliva passed between us, we stared without recognizing each other.
“Someone’s moving in the room next door,” I said.
She sat up. I tortured her when I made her wait.
“Me, Isabelle. Not you.”
I ravaged her as if she were struggling against me.
“Someone is moving in the room next door. Look, Isabelle, look, in the wall.”
“It’s a spyhole,” she said.
“They can see us. I’m sure they can see us.”
I lay down over her, I hid her from the strangers.
“Which ‘they’?” asked Isabelle silkily.
“I don’t know. The people in the room. Listen! The sound our bedsprings make in the dorm.”
Isabelle stared. I had surprised her.
“Forget other people and lie down better than that,” Isabelle said.
She scratched me, or perhaps she scraped her nails on the tiles.
“Our bedsprings at night. . I’m begging you: listen.”
Someone knocked.
“Open it,” she said. “It’s the door.”
Someone tried to push the door open, they were speaking:
“What have you done here? Have you barricaded yourselves inside?”
I picked up the key, I pulled away the table. Mme Algazine pushed her head through the opening:
“You can take the tray from the landing yourselves, since you’ve locked yourselves in.”
Lying on the floor in the middle of the room, Isabelle crossed her arms over her face.
I fetched the tray, I heard the groans of the bedsprings in the room next door. I came back into our room:
“Don’t you want to drink it? You won’t get up?”
“I want you to come here,” said Isabelle.
“The sound our bed makes at night. .”
“It isn’t the sound of our bed at night,” said Isabelle.
I listened. The regular rhythm was not like our fitful rhythm in Isabelle’s box.
“Who is it?”
“A couple.”
The bed went quiet. I was still listening.
“Come here,” said Isabelle, “come here you, still in your clothes.”
I came: my chest was burning through her dress.
“Marry me, marry me all over,” moaned Isabelle. Her smile grew broader and I possessed her everywhere that skin met fabric: my arms, my legs were winding around her. I hid in her neck:
“The sound has started again.”
I could not tear myself away from that regular cadence.
“Listen!”
“I can’t hear anything,” said Isabelle.
I was trapped by the rhythm, condemned to follow it, to hope for it, fear it, to edge closer to it.
“Let’s drink the port,” said Isabelle.
I was listening hard.
“Drink!” ordered Isabelle.
I obeyed. The amber heat filled my chest.
“Listen! Someone’s screaming.”
Isabelle shrugged:
“I can’t hear anything.”
She strutted around the room. Someone was sighing, whimpering.
Isabelle reached over the folding bed: she was rummaging in her bag.
“Less noise. They’re complaining,” I said.
Someone was immured in the bedroom next to ours, someone who was trying to escape but couldn’t find a way out.
Isabelle was filing her nails.
“Stop me from hearing it!” I said.
Isabelle went on filing her thumbnail.
The last wail pierced as high as the North Star. Isabelle’s nail file gnawed into the silence.
Isabelle put her file back in her handbag.
“We’re wasting our time. Why did we rent this room?”
“I don’t know anymore,” I said.
Isabelle slapped me.
“I don’t know, I don’t know. .”
Isabelle slapped me again.
“It’s a couple. There’s a couple in the next room,” I said.
She took up the little coffee table, she threw it into the marble fireplace. Isabelle’s fury bewitched me.
“Undress me,” said Isabelle.
I took off her clothes, I laid them out one by one on the folding bed.
She was naked, severe, standing very straight in the center of the room. I took her hand, I led her over and with the other hand, as we passed, I righted the little table.
I fell on Isabelle, I laid bare the shape of her legs, of her instep; I saw myself in the mirror. The room was old; the mirror reflected back the buttocks and embraces of every couple. I took her leg in my arms, skimmed over it with my chin, my cheek, my lips. I stroked her back and forth as if with a bow; the mirror showed everything I did; the slaps she had given me tingled.
“You’re slipping away from me,” she said.
I looked in the mirror at her hands clasped over her pubic hair, I felt the pleasure of one alone.