Piers' Desire

by Marianne Ackerman

“Why would I lie? More to the point, why would you? Surely you can tell me who you are? Why did you come to Avignon? I would like to read all of your books. That’s why I’m here. I would like to know you, Piers Le Gris. If that is your real name. . . .Is it?”

  He winced.

  “So you want to remain mysterious. Then answer one question.”

  He shrugged. There was no stopping the barrage. “Have you ever killed anyone?” She was staring straight at him, nothing flirtatious about the question. When he didn’t answer, she said, “You know an awful lot about killing. It always happens from behind, doesn’t it? I mean, your killers sneak up on their victims.”

  In a year of Tuesday afternoons he had never noticed the ring of blue inside the grey centres of her eyes. She had a solid, sculpted face that just missed great beauty, yet from a certain angle could suddenly disarm. Lost in discovery, he forgot to think about the question. His mind emptied. His hands were resting idly on the table. She reached out and touched his fingers lightly.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Have I ever killed anyone?” he repeated, vaguely.

  “That’s what I was asking. You can be honest. I won’t tell anybody.”

  He laughed, a nervous ripple guaranteed to telegraph guilt and lead to further questions. By the excitement in her eyes, he knew she wanted more. He was tempted to say, imagination is a thief. It steals from reality. The more you steal, the more you long to confess. But at that precise moment, when he felt himself strung out on a wire, unable to improvise escape and sorely tempted to blurt out the truth, Magali Martel appeared before his eyes. She was standing outside the café window, smiling. His face lit up from inside. Chanelle followed his gaze.

  “Well, well,” she said, when Magali waved at him. “This explains everything.”

  Before he could respond, Mouloud turned up and tossed her the teddy bear. They began to dance, Magali throwing it up in the air, Mouloud struggling to get it back, looking over his shoulder. The dance was playful, posed and somehow, Piers thought, cruel. When Mouloud saw him watching, he stopped. Piers waved but they’d turned away and were talking. He looked back at Chanelle. “Why don’t you invite her in?” she said. He shrugged. “Go on, do it.”

  Piers leaped up and ran out into the street, but Magali and Mouloud were walking away. He called her name. Mouloud looked back, and tightening his arm around Magali’s waist, scowled and hurried her off.

  Chanelle was on the phone by the time he returned, making plans for dinner. He’d intended to ask her to spend the evening but now it was too late.

  “I won’t ask any more questions,” she sighed coolly, as he sat down. Getting up to leave, she kissed him on the forehead, a gesture he had come to recognize as the blessing of goodbye. He reached for her hand. “May I call you?”

  She shrugged. “Sure. But not about Tuesday.”

  When he returned home that night, a light was on in the dining room, but there was none of the usual cacophony of television to cover his footsteps. He stopped at the bottom of the staircase, wondering what Nelly could be doing up so late. Careful not to startle her, he pushed the dining-room door open a few centimetres. She was sitting at the end of the table, writing, oblivious to his presence. He let the door shut softly and made his way upstairs.

  The sight of an unmade bed was so much more inviting than a computer screen. He stretched out, drifting, and called up the night’s work in his mind’s eye, trying to picture the pages yet to be written. In the distance he heard voices. Struggling out of halfsleep, he forced himself to sit up, and checked his watch. An hour had slipped by.

  Magali and Mouloud entered the rose room on tiptoe. He’d promised to be quiet, drink a glass of water and leave. The new Mouloud, a friend for life. No more demands. Or so he’d said.

  She handed him a bottle of mineral water and a wet cloth. He wiped his face and pulled up a chair. As she lifted his coat off the floor he started to speak, but she put a finger to her lips and nodded in the direction of Piers’ room. He’d hardly settled in when she was standing beside the open door with his coat over her arm, a signal meaning he had to leave.

  There was nothing more to say, yet he desperately wanted to stay even if it meant going over the same bitter territory one more time, anything to forestall the moment when he had to go downstairs and into the street alone, without her. So little time left, everything was on the line now. His chance to study in Toulouse was gone. The Arab community of Avignon was tight and well connected. Someone was sure to have passed along the news that Ahmed Mourabed’s brilliant son was working at the market, mooning over a piece of French tail. Any day now, his father would find out and come after him and he’d never see her again. He loved her so much his body ached. Love made him weak. He was terrified of the awful debilitating power of his love. Sometimes he thought he might die of love.

  “Magali,” he whispered. He tried to move but his body was a dead weight in the chair. He needed to tell her one more time how it could be. The way she was looking at him made words impossible. His face felt frozen.

  “You’ve got to go now,” she said in a low murmur. She opened the door a little wider.

  He pulled himself up so quickly the chair fell backwards. Suddenly full of rage, he wrenched the coat from her grasp. “You’re a murderer. You killed our child.” Then he began to sob.

  She closed the door, shook her head with the familiar bored expression he hated so much. “It wasn’t a child,” she moaned. “It was a mistake. I’ve told you a hundred times, but you refuse to accept the truth.”

  She grabbed his arm and began to pull. He slapped her face hard leaving a red blotch on her cheek. Tears welled up in her eyes. She glared at him but did not move. He could have hit her again. He could tell she expected it but she held her ground.

  “You see?” she snarled. “Can’t you see how wrong this is?”

  From the other side of the insubstantial partition, Magali’s voice was sharp and pleading. At first Piers thought she was on the phone. The conversation seemed to be one-sided. Finally he made out the low register of a male voice punctuating her monologue. Then silence. He leaned against the wall trying to hear what they were saying. Muffled words soon gave way to sobs and dry lamentations stuck in the mourner’s throat.

  He shot out of his room and down the hall, banged a fist on Magali’s door. No answer. He knocked again, this time calm and firm as though he deserved to be let in. She opened the door a crack.

  “What do you want?” Her eyes were cold. She held a hand up, covering her cheek. “I thought I heard someone,” he said.

  Beneath the wash of hostility, her face was flushed, eyes wide. She was breathing heavily. She’s on some kind of drug, he thought. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she said. She was hanging on to the door. He glanced over her head and caught a glimpse of the Arab boy, who was kneeling on a mattress in the middle of the floor. Catching Piers’ gaze, he sank into the bedclothes and turned away.

  Piers tried to step forward but Magali closed the door on his foot.

  “If you don’t mind—”

  “Is there anything I can do?” he interrupted.

  “Go back to your room.”

  She laid one foot down on top of his. He wondered if the gesture was a sign, some communication of danger she didn’t dare express in words.

  “Magali,” he whispered. She shook her head. She was standing close to him, glassy-eyed, halfsmiling, giving him a look that made him feel naked and foolish. She enjoys the power, he thought. A middle-aged man in a bathrobe and a bawling boy, both pleading for her attention. She loves it.

  He pulled his foot back and said, “Goodnight then.”

  Walking away, he was sure he could feel her eyes sweep his body with contempt.

  As quickly as anger had taken Mouloud out of himself and into an alien realm of hatred, it passed, leaving
him limp with remorse.

  “I’m sorry,” he moaned. His eyes stung. She wasn’t crying. She was kneeling beside him on the mattress, whispering lethal words into his ear.

  “You see what I mean? I am so, so right, Mouloud. Your love is full of hatred and control and selfishness. It makes me puke.” She spat out the word love, kept after him, twisting his words. “You say you love me but you can’t even get it through your head that I don’t want what you want, at least not right now, and it isn’t some kind of temporary sickness I’ll get over, it’s me, how I am. Anyway, your putrid little promises wouldn’t last past the first time it rained.”

  He reached out to touch her hair, but she pushed him away, eyes radiant with triumph.

  “I would never break a promise to you, Magali.” She sighed. “I don’t want your promises.”

  “Well, I’m going to make one anyway, and then you aren’t going to see me again, ever.”

  “Shhh. Keep your voice down, the whole damn house is listening, can’t you understand. He’s listening.” She pointed at Piers’ room.

  She was close to him now, so close he could feel the heat from her cheek. No matter what he did to her, he could tell she didn’t care. She didn’t love him, didn’t even hate him. Even if he drew blood, she would swallow it and stand there telling him to leave. Nothing could touch the cold in her. Even in the middle of sex, she hadn’t really been there. She didn’t lose herself. But then neither did he, he held back and watched them watching each other.

  Taking up his coat, he stepped outside the door so she would know that this time he meant to go. “I promise—” He stopped, waiting to be sure she was listening.

  “What do you promise?” she said, glaring at him.

  In a normal voice, he said, “The next guy you fuck will die.”

  “Don’t be silly!” she laughed, but her voice trembled.

  He turned and headed downstairs.

  “Mouloud! I’ll see you around.”

  “No you won’t,” he said, without looking back. She closed her door and turned the key.

  From a crack in his door, Piers watched Mouloud disappear down the stairs. He waited a few seconds before following to make sure the chain lock on the front door was in place. When he passed Magali’s door on the way back, her light was out. Careful not to signal a presence, he slipped off his shoes and carried them into his room.

  SIX

  ALPHONSE REBOUL HAD ELABORATE plans for the house by the time he inherited 9 rue des Griffons in 1961. He had explored every crevice and corner as a child. Poring over picture books on Sunday afternoons, he pretended not to listen while his mother and uncle Clément talked in hushed tones, knowing their conversation would soon turn to his absent father, a doctor who led a series of vague medical missions in the Polynesian Islands. Ruinous adventures, according to his mother. She consoled herself by reminding Alphonse that her brother’s house would someday be his. Steeped in her longing, he never quite began to live; he was waiting for the house.

  By the time Clément died, in his ninety-fifth year, Alphonse was 50. Hardly had the door closed on mourners when he set about realizing a longnurtured list of improvements. A cellar-to-roof renovation would fulfil his late mother’s dreams and transform a dank mausoleum into an elegant townhouse, fitted out with conveniences, tasteful and contemporary yet respectful of the architect’s intentions. Modern plumbing, white walls, lightness and air wherever possible: the new owner proceeded with fervour, certain fresh paint and glass could banish the shadows of a miserable childhood. In the seventh year of renovation, he met Nelly St. Cyr.

  There was still much work to be done. The skeleton ceiling of rafters reminded her of a barn. The stark white walls seemed crude, the overall effect more like a convent or museum than a home. She did not share the memories her husband was desperate to erase. But before they had time to confront the decor, Alphonse fell ill and entered a slow decline. His dying words: “Don’t ever abandon this house.”

  His last wish hung heavily on Nelly. In the weeks after his death, she’d been desperate to leave. Instead, she embarked on a thorough cleaning of the house which led to change. In the third floor attic, she found a trove of magnificent old furniture and moved it all downstairs: Clément’s heavy oak armoires, various dark pine dressers, plant stands, wicker chairs, a horsehair recliner and travel trunks full of china, paintings and sundry objets d’art. Telling herself the monastic white plaster walls would surely crack and let in dangerous drafts, she covered the downstairs rooms with wallpaper, elegant brocades and stripes. Soon the house was back to where Alphonse had started. Taking in boarders seemed like a sensible plan. The two main bedrooms were emptied of personal belongings and transformed by warm colours: green like the underside of olive leaves for one and a cheerful antique pink in the other. She moved into the tiny alcove at the end of the hall and covered the cracks with lavender wallpaper. A single bed sufficed.

  All of this happened in a single year of mourning, a time in which she had kept to herself. When the work was done, the only remaining evidence of her late husband was a photograph of General de Gaulle pinning a medal on his chest — in Nelly’s opinion, the highlight of Alphonse’s life. He had enlisted at the first sign of action and risen to the rank of Captain in time to meet the invading Germans in the Ardennes, but was wounded on the second day of fighting and spent the rest of the war in convalescence. He would not be quizzed on the details, though she persisted. When he finally produced the medal, she whisked it away for cleaning and kept it hidden in a cedar box with her nurse’s graduation pin and a few pearl buttons.

  If only Alphonse had talked about the battle, told stories of the front, even hinted at memories too terrible for words. Instead, his silence stood between them like a lost child. She kept the photograph hanging above her bed. De Gaulle’s hot eyes followed her around the room, while Alphonse remained frozen, his profile almost hidden.

  The month of November brought an invasion of dreams, sharp images without stories: Alphonse standing at the top of the staircase, looming over her. At first she’d written quickly, every night, feverishly filling loose pages, re-reading, revising, rewriting, before finally copying the polished phrases into The Courtesan’s Prayer Book. But since the dreams began, the words had stopped. She could feel his quizzical expression; it said, you’re a fool. I am, she thought, without remorse. But this story is not for you. Still, his gaze burned. Who is your reader, then? Alphonse had a way of jumping straight to the point. He would have made a good soldier, had fate given him a chance.

  On her way up to bed, Nelly paused outside Piers’ door. At first she thought it was a radio. Then she recognized the low drone of his voice, punctuated by Magali’s laughter. The sound made her weak. A girl young enough to be his child! Suddenly, it came to her, the answer to the question posed by a dead man’s ghostly presence: she was writing for Magali. Brigitte’s nosey progeny deserved the truth. From now on, she decided, nothing could be held back. She turned and hurried downstairs, into the kitchen.

  The General was curled up under the table. A burst of light entered his sleep as a bad omen, but the warmth of her stockinged feet slipping under his belly was reassuring. He fell back into a dream where every chase led to conquest and all smells were friendly.

  From the moment Roland came into our lives, I began to take an interest in the war. Until then it had been a nuisance, like rain or a sore throat. He came from the north. He had been sent to us by de Gaulle himself, they were still in touch. He spoke to me like an adult, so my father could hardly object.

  Once a week, we met in the basement of a café in Ste. Cécile to catch the General’s broadcasts on a short-wave radio. De Gaulle’s voice rolled over us like ocean waves, as if he were speaking to millions, though it seemed he also spoke directly at Roland, who sat with his eyes turned away from the radio. From the BBC, I learned to hate Pétain, the traitor who settled with the Nazi
s and yoked us to their cause. And a Frenchman, a hero of Verdun! Like my father, who had lost his health in the first war.

  Of what did this fight for freedom consist? Bundles of newspapers smuggled from Marseille bringing the latest news from Paris and London. We slid copies under certain doors at night, or slipped them into baskets of eggs. I delivered some from my schoolbag in broad daylight. Gathering information on the Germans, to be sent to Paris. All with the utmost secrecy. In the beginning, I had only a vague idea of what the Maquisards were up to, their obsession with train times, secret meetings, breathless excursions into the wilderness. Had the Germans questioned me, I’d have been hard pressed to tell them much. I might have been embarrassed.

  Still, one truth did not go over my head: it was clear that for those who threw in their lot with the fight for freedom, the ordinary rules of smalltown life no longer applied. Once you were known to be active, you could come and go as you pleased. No one raised an eyebrow when Roland and I linked arms in broad daylight. The common assumption was that we did it as a disguise, a bit of theatre to throw off the enemy and confirm Roland’s place in the community. The Germans liked to see evidence of normal life in their midst. Love convinced them the French had accepted the Reich.

  Only one person was not disposed to accept our excuse: my mother. She disliked Roland on first sight. Her only clandestine activity consisted of watching us, broadcasting her disapproval with a sharp word or a grimace. But she knew better than to defy my father by objecting to a man who had parachuted into his meadow.

  One night, Roland came with a truck to deliver supplies to a cell in the mountains, somewhere in the Drome; he assumed I would go. I slipped a note of coded explanation into the sugar bowl, but apparently no one drank coffee the next morning. My return the following night brought down the wrath of mother. She grabbed my arms and shook me, shouting. I thought she’d gone mad.

  “Do-you-know-what-you-are-doing!? Fool! Harlot! Consequences! Such behaviour!” She wouldn’t let go. I answered back, “What have I done?” She kept calling me a fool. Fool! Fool! I could see her hand coming but made no effort to move. She slapped me hard on the ear. Her violence was frightening. I hid in my room, determined to tell my father everything. But the next morning she was careful not to leave us alone, so I said nothing.