by Roman Payne
1 MOI . . . ORPHELINE: (Fr) ‘Me, who am nothing but a little orphan girl!’
2 EAU PARFUMEE: (Fr) ‘Perfumed water’ is similar to eau de toilette (‘toilet water’), which itself is a lighter form of perfume than traditional French parfum (‘perfume’); except that an ‘eau parfumée’ is even lighter (weaker in strength) than an ‘eau de toilette.’ This ‘water,’ scented usually with rose, vanilla, fresh scents such as citruses, or else a blend of scents, is traditionally given to—and worn by—girls approximately between the ages of seven and fourteen. In most western countries, girls younger than seven or eight are not allowed or encouraged to scent their skin. While generally at around thirteen or fourteen years of age, a girl’s femininity urges her to experiment with ‘coquetry’ and she’ll start wearing an ‘eau de toilette’ instead of an ‘eau parfumée.’
“But when it comes to pass,” I broke in, “that she falls into ruin, I want to be there to help my little gypsy girl know that it is only financial ruin, so that she won’t go crazy. I want to help her pitch her gypsy tent by the riverbank… I will build the fire to keep her warm. And I will feed her while she sings me songs, and neither of us will weep.”
“You’re right,” she said, “neither of us will weep.”
The center of Saskia’s back was covered this night in the soft-knit of her pajama top. Sitting beside her, I pressed the palm of my hand on this place—perhaps the most sacred place on a woman’s body. The two of us were near the kitchen. And with my hand on her body, the world felt perfect. Life was perfect. I felt her body perfectly until, I think, she realized how perfectly I wanted to feel her body. That is when she spoke and ruined everything…
“You know, Saul, I feel safe with you. I want you to know that I will tell you everything in my life…”
“What is it?” I asked her.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t mention yesterday that I had a date for the theatre for tonight… I guess I didn’t think it was important to our friendship, so I didn’t bring it up. I guess I was mostly surprised to see you jealous of him…”
“I don’t know if ‘jealous’ is the right word.”
“What then?!” she said, “ Saul… how could you, man that you are, be jealous of a child like he is?! And how could you be jealous anyway, seeing as you and I are just friends?!” With that, Saskia left my side and went to boil water for tea.
I was blown away by all this. For a long time, I sat with my head drooped, saying nothing, feeling myself a dupe. When I first met Saskia, she said everything in the world depended on our being together. Was it not her devotion to our relationship that had seduced me into being with her? I had tried to leave her, but she sought me out again… checking into my old hotel and playing her siren song from the balcony. Now her devotion had turned into indifference. Her dreams seemed to fall like snow in the night, only to melt with the rising sun—and I was the dupe.
I only opened my mouth after a quarter of an hour: one, to tell Saskia she was right; and, two, to tell her that she was a ridiculous creature, a mere adolescent, and that I had expected a maturity from her of which she was not capable. I finished by saying that I could only be happy far away from girls of only seventeen years, because they are all idiots.
I couldn’t believe the effect my words had on her! She erupted in tears, choked on her sobs, and trembled and made fists so tight that her nails cut the soft skin of her hands. “What I mean is that you are right,” I told her, “we never did make a vow of commitment, it was I who imagined that we had a strong emotional bond—but this was a reaction to your attitude towards me. That aside, I have to tell you I can never respect you again. I suggest we go our separate ways.” With these grim words, Saskia exploded into even louder sobs. I went on, “Things would be different had you cheated on me for passion alone. In that case, I would be jealous and despise you, but I would know it wasn’t your fault because passion infects even the noblest hearts. But the truth remains that you took your friend home with you not out of passion but only so that you would continue receiving your money. There is a word for such women. We call them whores.”
Her pan of tea water dropped to the floor. Her hands trembled and she stood in the kitchen sobbing away. As tears tumbled from her eyelids, I took a pinch of tobacco and laughed.
“You are a monster!” she said, and turned to me to let these words pour out, “Stop laughing, damn you! You have an evil heart, a black soul, etc…. So you know, I took him to my home only so he could snoop in my apartment. I hoped that he would get bored with what he found and stop spying on me. His pretext for wanting to come see my place was that he wanted a cup of coffee after the dance, and before going to his hotel. That is all! So why did you say I had sex with him, Saul? Tell me that you have never once in your life brought a female to your home at night with whom you did not have sex. Really? Not even once! You’re a liar. So then you, Saul the Great, think that I am a whore? Well you are wrong! And you know what else?... who gives a damn about your destiny, or my destiny, for that matter! To hell with both you and me! What? I can say that if I want. I don’t care what happens anymore. I think I hate you, Saul. How could you say such a thing?—that I’m a whore!…” Her tears kept her from saying more. She didn’t run away and she didn’t shout in anger, she just kept crying in her kitchen. All the water in her sweet body poured from her face, dripping down her beautiful cheeks, soaking in her pajamas, splashing on the floor. I was made tender by her crying, her sensitive heart made me ache profoundly. I felt torn, I wasn’t sure.
Before I’d ever set foot in Greece, in Spain, in Europe altogether… when I was living in Alexandria, I didn’t have much money and lived in a very poor quarter of the city where the prostitutes and erotic dancers were. In that part of town, one met a different kind of woman—the kind of woman who never took a man to her home unless it was to let him sleep with her. Thus, in Alexandria, I got used to thinking of that kind of woman; when I came to Europe and met the other kind, the virtuous kind, I didn’t recognize the difference right away; so I confused the virtuous Saskia with the former kind and I couldn’t work it out in my head. And so that night, with the alcohol and the confusion, I lay on her bed in the darkness and thought. After some minutes, Saskia came from the kitchen where we had talked, and she approached the bed. Still crying, she lay down beside me on top of the blankets. She didn’t touch me, she just lay there. Finally, she confessed, “I have not slept with anyone since I met you, Saul.” Her tone of voice was so sincere, I knew she was telling the truth. And like the wispy smoke of an opium cloud that disappears in the night once it leaves the smoker’s lungs, so my anger disappeared when that phrase left Saskia’s mouth. I thought then only of one thing: of comforting her until she stopped crying. I touched her shoulder. “Don’t ever call me an idiot again, you idiot…” She made a small laugh.
“I am glad we aren’t fighting anymore,’ I told her.
“Me too… don’t you think it’s strange that we had a fight about nothing?—well, except that it was not about nothing, because you were jealous because I had a meeting with another man. That means you are attracted to me.” She giggled again.
I didn’t know how to escape from that. It is true that I was depressed without her when I was alone at the Urquinaona; and sick with longing for her when she left me alone in our suite at the Sant Felip Neri… but was I attracted to her?
When I woke up in the bed with her at the Sant Felip Neri, I felt a sort of love for her, but as I said: more than wanting to embrace her as a woman, I wanted to protect her as my child. Although, she was no longer a child. She was almost eighteen years old, and she had lived longer on her own than many women had. By experience with the world she was a woman, only in love was she a child… And so, when I became sick with jealousy seeing her on the arm of another man, I knew I was falling in love with her as a man falls in love with a woman. Now I knew, and the whole business was all-too-obvious to Saskia. She clung to me then, in the darkness, on her little bed. I bowed my head and
she kissed the lobe of my ear. Her kiss was not on the lips as lovers do, but I was happy not to go deeper than that this night.
“The truth is,” she told me, “in all my life, I’ve only slept with one person—it was three years ago, I was only fourteen. I told you about my uncle’s will. They way in which he adored me was all too evident in its terms—I earn a yearly income from his estate for life, although I am not allowed to ever love a man…
“I went to live with him when I was thirteen, as soon as my parents died. He treated me as a child then, he considered me a child… and I was a child. But at fourteen he saw my body change and I developed the haughty and flirtatious character of a young woman. He was intrigued by this change…
“So one night, while I was sleeping, he entered my room and caressed me. I pretended I was asleep at first, and let him do it. I was partially afraid to show him I was awake, partially curious to know what he was doing. I continued to let him until it had gone on so long that I was too afraid to show him that I was awake unless I had anything but a look of happiness on my face. Then, I don’t know what happened. I started to feel sexual myself. I was already interested in boys—and in men—and this was the first time one touched me in this way. I let him proceed and, what may surprise you, or even disgust you, is that I started to return his affection, in my own clumsy inexperienced way. He was rough with me, and he took my virginity that night. But the whole time, I thought… it wasn’t awful. No, it wasn’t completely awful, although I wish he had been more gentle. Can you imagine that reaction from a niece? ‘It wasn’t completely awful, although I wish he had been more gentle!’—I bet you think I’m deranged. I slept with my uncle, and it didn’t disgust me at all… although I wish he had been more gentle.”
“I don’t think you’re deranged.”
“Afterwards, he kissed me on the cheek and told me he loved me and respected me, and that he would always be there for me, but that now he would leave me alone to sleep. I fell into a deep sleep, and by the next morning when I awoke, he had already left on a business trip to Athens.
“Every other day, I received gifts from him by the post: vases with Greek goddesses painted on them, incense, jewelry with pearls, precious stones, and seashells. I tried not to think too much about that night we were together. I knew he was a bachelor, and that it must have been hard to have a pretty girl sleeping in his house—even if I was his niece. In short, I forgave him. He didn’t get me pregnant; and at fourteen, I felt old enough, and developed enough sexually and emotionally, so that it didn’t ruin my childhood or leave scars…
“Still, although he didn’t scar me, that experience with him made it difficult for me ever after. I had trusted him as a protector, as my guardian, and when he took the initiative to sleep with me, it made me distrust the protection of protectors. Do you know what I mean? A youth thinks their protector is more powerful that anything; that he can and will save them from anything. That’s probably why young people think they cannot die—those who love them and protect them can save them even from death. So when your protector reveals to you that they are defenseless to their desires, it makes you feel defenseless yourself. Ever since, I have felt that if I were to give myself to a man, I would have to trust him as much as I trust myself. Now, if a man makes advances on me, I see him like I saw my uncle: a man at the mercy of his desires. And if he is at the mercy of his desires, and wants me to submit as well, then we are both at the mercy of things stronger than us—and this scares me. So ever since that experience with my uncle, I have been waiting to trust a man entirely, and to feel his strength and control, as well as his love for me, before I sleep with him. I hope you believe what I’m telling you…
“If you knew all that was in my heart,” she continued, “you would believe me without a doubt that it is unthinkable, impossible, that I would have slept with that silly boy from the theatre. Not only could he never be a protector for me, but he is even acting as the opposite. He wants to take my income from me, and leave me stranded in the street. To prevent this, I have to act like I enjoy his company, and that I do not love any man. If he knew about my feelings for you, I would be disinherited. Don’t forget this as well Saul… Andrea loves money more than he loves women. Do you think he would abandon his evil plan to enjoy a sensual relationship with me? No, if he ever succeeded in seducing me, it would only be so he could use that as the proof I was with another man.
I listened to all that Saskia had to say. She spoke with wisdom, and I felt her words deep in my body. Her head was against my shoulder where we lay on her bed—I on my back, and she on her side with her hand clasped innocently and childlike on my upper-arm. I believed everything she said; more than believed, her story was more real than life. She trembled as she spoke. This was a girl who was beautiful to the depths of her creative soul. She was innocent, yet she knew the world. She loved people as she loved the world. She had loved her uncle although she didn’t ask for his passion. But her passion was abundant and free, and so she gave it… family member or not, she discovered through her uncle the sensation of being made love to. I had been a fool at the theatre. In Saskia, I recognized a sensitive female who could now as a woman only give herself to a man she loved and trusted. When she said she was ‘free to make love to whomever she wants,’ she was telling me that she was free in her wildness; that she was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city. She told me she was faithful to me because she saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. I had grown weary of myself by this time. With the advancing years, I was getting more and more aware of who I was—going on the theory that a man is no more than the sum-total of his actions, that his actions make up his character. And his character is who he is…
I used to paint when I was younger, but in recent years I lived only for my own pleasure: wine during the waxing moon, opium, and women. There is much pleasure in that, but nothing admirable. Yet Saskia saw something in me to love that I didn’t see myself; and so I decided that night after Saskia made her confession about her uncle, and about the amount of trust she would need to have in a man before she could let him make love to her that, from then on, I would devote myself entirely to her. I would not treat her like those women in the past I often seduced for a single night of pleasure. No, I would in all respects be a man of virtue and honor with her. So thinking this, I smiled with pleasure and felt the softness of her hair with my hand, as her head lay sweetly on my shoulder in the dark.
“I promise,” she whispered to me, “that the next time I am with a man, you will be the first to know, because it will be a very important night in my life.”
“I adore you, Saskia. Thank you for trusting me with your story.”
“Saul?” she asked, sliding her head up slightly to look at me in the darkness.
“Yes, little fox?”
“Well, two things… First, can we sleep like this tonight? I mean with my face on your shoulder and my hand on your arm?” “Of course, I would like that. And the other?” “Do you mind if we go sleep in Golya’s room?” “Who is Golya?”
“My maid, remember?, the one I sent away. Her bed is behind a door in the staircase. It’s really small and claustrophobic, but I’m afraid Andrea might have a spy watching my apartment while he’s in town.”
I touched her face with my fingers and smiled, and the two of us stood up in the darkness and went through the stairwell to sleep in Golya’s bed. Now, just as before when we were in her bed, she put her face on my shoulder and her hand on my arm. And I kissed her on her closed eyelids and she clung tight to me and said goodnight. That is how we slept on our last night together in Barcelona. As we drifted asleep, I told myself I would protect her as though she were my child, as though she were my wife. And that night, I truly began to love Saskia as a woman. I like to think that it was that night she began to truly love me.
Chapter Twenty-one
Together in Paris…
The events that happened during the short time Sas
kia and I lived in Paris together were strange and extraordinary. These events seemed to arrange the architecture of our destiny—assuming our destiny could have been otherwise. I often wondered why I agreed to go with Saskia to Paris and live with her there. True, I did want to help her with her, “assumed,” plan to find Adélaïse, although I was skeptical of this mysterious “Fortune” she spoke of. I didn’t go out of charity—of course not. Charity meant nothing to me then. I think it was simply put… Saskia had succeeded in seducing me. Without knowing why or how, I found myself in love with this strange Wanderess. Maybe I was just in love with the dream she was selling me: a life of destiny and fate; as my own life up until we met had been so void of enchantment. Those things: mystery, fate, enchantment… they are things that young people offer us as soon as we get close to them. And if we’re not careful, we can be seduced by, and drawn back into, the youthful world they preside over. Regardless of how or why… as soon as I knew Saskia, I found I could no longer live without her.
It was there in Paris that the great mystery that bound the two of us together began to unveil itself. That city was our wine, our poison, our pleasure and pain. We loved Paris …that is, until it led us to ruin. Here is how it started…
Following the incident at the theatre in Barcelona, Saskia and I departed immediately for France—it was Sunday morning. I was charged with my two valises. Saskia had only her guitar case and a large suitcase containing her favorite clothes and possessions. Everything else, she left behind in Barcelona. We arranged for a messenger to go to Andrea’s hotel with the lie that Saskia was travelling to Portugal with a group of female tourists, and that if for any reason he had business in Lisbon, she would be “most thrilled” to see him there (although she left no address as to where she would be staying)… The message was scheduled to be delivered only after we had crossed the French border…
We arrived in Paris eight days later and rented a lavish apartment on the Rive Gauche1 side. Our balcony overlooked the river Seine, as well as the tip of the Île de la Cité1. From Saskia’s dressing table, one could see much of the Île Saint-Louis, the island where we were sure Adélaïse was living. We planned to go there every day to look for her; and in the evenings, we would go to the theatre at the Comédie-Française. We knew it was a risky affair to frequent the theatre together. It is known that Paris is the crossroads for adventurers and opportunists, and all the colorful characters of European Society as a whole; and if gossip were to travel to Andrea from anyplace, Paris would send it faster than any other town. Yet Saskia couldn’t live without the theatre and society. And my greatest pleasure was pleasing her. Imagine the two of us: she, a wild spirit, and me a man of liberty; not for a minute were we to become housebound slaves to anyone, not when the splendours of Paris were outside to be tasted.