What will we do in the night to come? Isabelle knows. Tomorrow, in this class, in front of this desk, I will know what we have done. I stare at the small b. I shall quickly recall what we did last night. Everything we did before she picks up the cloth, before she rubs out the small b. I cannot remember all the details. We didn’t do anything. I am unfair. She kissed me, she came to me. Yes, she came. What a world. . She came to lie upon me. I throw myself at Isabelle’s feet. I can hardly remember what we did and it is all I can think about. What will we do tonight? Another girl rubs out the triangle, small a, small b, small c.
By four o’clock, my fever was mounting. Unleashed, the girls launched themselves into the corridors, their mouths full of soft white rolls.
I will come into the study room on tiptoe, I will drop my hand onto her shoulder, I will take her by surprise, I will whip her with my question. What will we do tonight?
I got there but I did not go in. People are working, officiating. I can hear the humming of their effort through the glass door, I am waiting for the right moment to appear, to play casual. I cannot see Isabelle there in supervised study. I shall enter like an invader. I entered like a felon.
“Quiet,” said a girl, without raising her head.
It was stricter than in church. Isabelle was studying at the first table near the platform. I sat down in my place, opened a book to be like her; I kept watch, I counted one two three four five six seven eight. I cannot approach her, I cannot distract her. A girl went up to Isabelle’s table and, without any hesitation, showed her an exercise. They were conversing, debating a point. Isabelle was living as she had lived before drawing me into her box. Isabelle was deceiving me, Isabelle fascinated me, Isabelle was starving me.
I cannot read now. The question recurs in each meander of the geography book. How can I use up the time? She turns her profile to me, she exposes herself, she does not know that I am drinking her in, she turns toward me, she will never know what she has given me. She speaks, she is far away, she works, she discusses: a colt gambols in her head. I am nothing like her. I will go to her, I will come between Isabelle and the other girl. She is yawning — she is so human — she pulls the pin from her twist of hair, pushes it back with the same gesture, her gesture in the lavatories. She knows what she will do tonight but she is not worried about it.
Isabelle leaned back over her work when the girl left the study room. Isabelle had seen me.
I came down between the rows, squeezed tight by the walls of my joy.
“My love. You were there?” she said.
My head was empty.
“Bring your books over. We shall work together. It is stifling in here.”
I opened the window and looked stoically out into the schoolyard.
“You’re not bringing your books?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I could never work close to you. It is so strong. .”
When she sees me and her face changes, it is genuine. When she does not see me and her face does not change that is genuine too.
“You really want me?” I ask.
“Sit down.”
“I can’t.”
“My sweet.”
“Don’t call me my sweet. I am afraid.”
“Sit down, let’s talk.”
“I can’t talk anymore.”
I sat down near her, I sobbed a soundless sob.
“What is it?”
“I can’t explain.”
She took my hand beneath the desk.
“Isabelle, Isabelle. . What shall we do during recreation?”
“We’ll talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.” I took back my hand.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” Isabelle insisted.
“Don’t you understand?”
“We will be together again. I promise you.”
Toward seven in the evening, some girls gathered around me, suggested a stroll, some gossip. I faltered, I separated myself from them without acknowledging it. I was not free and no longer their age. I froze: Isabelle was tidying her books, she was close. The would-be truants and their temptations went off to another table. One tall girl standing alone before the open window was embroidering a handkerchief, her back to the sky. She raised her eyes, looked at me without seeing, she went on embroidering. I stayed at my desk. Isabelle was tidying her books yet the embroiderer was she.
My peach skin: the evening light in the playground at seven o’clock. My cherviclass="underline" arachnean lace in the air. My sacred caskets: the trees’ foliage with their breezy altars. What will we do tonight? The evening shades into the day, I see the evening in royal renaissance costume. The air cossets me but I don’t know what we will do for our next night together. I hear noises, I hear seven-in-the-evening voices that embrace the thoughtful horizon. The glove of infinity has me in its grip.
“What are you looking at, Thérèse?”
“There. . the geraniums. .”
“What else?”
“The boulevard, the window — they’re all you.”
“Give me your arm. Don’t you want to?”
The evening came upon us with its velvet mantle down to our knees.
“We can’t go arm in arm. People will notice, we’ll be caught.”
“Are you ashamed?” asked Isabelle.
“Ashamed of what? Don’t you understand? I am being careful.” Groups of girls were watching us. Isabelle took my arm.
“Imagine you were expelled. It would be. .”
I could not finish, I could not picture myself dead.
I tried again:
“You are the best student in the school. You won’t be expelled. Imagine if I were.”
“It would be dreadful,” said Isabelle.
I shivered.
“Let’s run!” she said.
Girls were waiting for the dinner bell in clusters by the walls and left the yard to us.
The schoolyard was ours. We ran, arms around each other’s waist, our foreheads tearing through that lace in the air, we listened to the rippling of our hearts in the dust. Tiny white horses rode in our breasts. The girls and monitors laughed and clapped, they encouraged us when we began to slow.
“Faster, faster! Close your eyes. I’m leading,” said Isabelle.
There was a wall to put behind us. We would be alone.
“You’re not running fast enough. Yes, yes. . Close your eyes, close your eyes.”
I obeyed.
Her lips brushed my lips.
“I’m afraid of falling over and killing myself,” I said.
I opened my eyes: we were alive.
“Afraid? I’m guiding you,” she said.
“We can run more if you want.”
I was exhausted.
“My woman, my child,” she said.
She gave and she withheld words. She could hug them to her while hugging me. I half-released my fingers from around her waist, I counted: my love, my woman, my child. Three fingers for my three engagement rings.
A girl was ringing the dinner bell.
“Keep on ringing,” called Isabelle to her.
Drowned in her ringing, the ringer laughed.
“One more run,” pleaded Isabelle. “I must talk to you, I must tell you about it.”
“Talk to me?”
I thought there would be no more nights. We were running but I was paralyzed. I took the lead:
“Am I not to come?”
The bell was ringing long and loud.
“You will come tonight,” said Isabelle.
It seemed that the ringer was ringing differently and that our wedding was beginning on the church steps, once the other couples had been blessed.
“Louder, louder,” called Isabelle to the ringer.
“Enough, enough!” Shouted the playground monitor. The girl hooked the chain back on its nail.