by Lily Tuck
The colors are lovely, Philip says. He sounds genuinely pleased.
In real life, the colors are brighter, Nina says.
The blues and greens are instances of iridescence, Philip adds.
The watercolor hangs in Philip’s office and he has repeatedly assured Nina that should his office catch on fire, the first thing he would grab to save from the flames—not his computer, not his precious papers—is her butterflies.
She would like to believe him.
Nina rarely visits Philip at work unannounced, but not so long ago—the memory of it still makes her blush—she recalls knocking on his office door, then, not waiting for an answer, opening it. Philip is talking on the phone.
Isabelle Theo—she does not quite catch the last name, a foreign-sounding one—makes my life a lot easier, Nina hears him say.
Raising his free hand, Philip frowns and makes a sign for her to wait.
I don’t know what I would do, he also says, as he swivels his chair away from his desk, turning his back on Nina, before he finished his sentence and hangs up the phone and swivels his chair back around to face her.
Are you okay? he asks. I wasn’t expecting you.
I was in Cambridge having lunch. I thought I would stop by on my way home, Nina answers.
I have a class in a minute, Philip says, looking up at the wall clock in his office.
Isabelle who? Nina asks, keeping her voice even. A secretary? A student?
Isabelle?
Is Philip feigning ignorance?
Oh—he starts to laugh. Do you want to meet her?
Look. Philip motions for Nina to come around as he points to his computer screen.
Isabelle is a software program. A generic theorem prover. It allows mathematical and computer science formulas to be expressed in a formal language. It comes with a large library of formally verified mathematics, including elementary number theory, set theory, the basic properties of limits, derivatives, and integrals—shall I go on?
Nina shakes her head.
An art teacher once told Nina to stop painting from her hand and wrist, and to paint from her shoulder. He advised her to work only in charcoal. Charcoal, he said, is simple, cheap, and connects the artist to the earth. And Nina should try to forget what she has learned—checking angles, calculating perspective—and, instead, learn to work quickly, almost blindly, and follow her instinct. She has to trust that somewhere between her shoulder and the paper an image will appear.
She has to give herself more room, stand farther back.
At first, she draws nothing but loops. Big loops. Some of them are so thick and dark that at times she presses too hard and the charcoal breaks off; others are lighter, the lines smudged, shades spread across the paper.
Drawing loops makes her feel exercised. The way she used to feel in the early mornings after she had run a couple of miles.
Or when she dances.
Or how she might feel if she could sing.
Again, she looks over at Philip, lying next to her.
To herself, she tries to hum a few lines from La vie en rose. Has she kept the charcoal portraits she did of Philip?
Or did she throw them out?
She can get the flashlight from the shelf in the hall closet downstairs, cross the garden—the grass will be wet from the rain—and go to her studio and look for them.
The sketches were not bad.
But she does not want to leave Philip.
What time is it?
Leaning over Philip, she tries to read the hands on the clock.
The numbers are blurry.
4:20? 4:40?
The hand that sets off the alarm is in the way.
Philip does not wear a watch.
From time to time, he has tried. He buys himself a cheap watch—a Timex or a Casio—but either he loses the watch or the watch stops working.
It must have something to do with my circadian rhythm, he says.
Nonsense, it’s the cheap watch, Nina tells him.
Nevertheless, Philip—unless he is held up at work—is rarely late. He has an uncanny ability to tell the time.
What time is it, Dad? Louise, as a child, likes to test him.
12:35.
Wrong! Louise shouts. 12:25.
Your watch is slow, Lulu, Philip tells her.
And, anyway, he continues, there is no absolute time. According to Einstein, each individual has his own personal measure of time, which depends on where he is and how he is moving.
Louise rolls her eyes at him.
If you had a twin, Lulu, and you were to go up in a spaceship at the speed of light for a few light-years and then return to earth to rejoin your twin, which of you would be younger? Philip goes on to ask her. You or your twin?
Of course, Nina knows the answer.
Like Iris, the spaceship twin is still young and beautiful while the twin left behind on earth, like her, is wrinkled and gray.
She starts to shut her eyes and opens them quickly.
Dizzy again.
Nauseated.
When did she last eat?
A sandwich at lunch while she paints sky and sea—part of the triptych.
The painting, she decides, is flat. Too cool.
She adds a coat of white and sands it back, a coat of yellow and sands that back, another coat of white to which she adds a little cerulean, then she sands that back as well. She has to build up a surface. She has to make it dense.
Eventually, she promises herself, she will make the painting work.
She will have to throw his ashes into the sea.
Louise will come with her.
They will remember to stand to leeward so that the ashes won’t blow back in their faces.
In the Musée du Jeu de Paume one afternoon, Nina asks Philip, Who is your favorite artist?
In the world?
Yes, in the world.
You.
No, seriously.
Cézanne. Yes, Cézanne.
They are standing in front of his self-portrait.
Cézanne is everyone’s favorite artist, Nina says a little impatiently.
Look at the self-assured way he stares out from the painting. His gaze is hypnotic, Philip says, ignoring her remark and gesturing to the portrait. I’m tempted to grow a beard just like his, he also says.
Don’t, Nina says.
Laughing, they move on.
Outside, it has begun to rain; neither one of them has brought an umbrella. Lightning flashes in bright succession followed by claps of thunder as they hurry to cross the Place de la Concorde and the Pont de la Concorde and run up boulevard Saint-Germain to the nearest café. They are both soaked.
At the bar, Philip orders them each a glass of Armagnac.
The expensive liquor burns her throat and makes her cough.
I think I’m falling in love with you, Philip tells her.
Still coughing, she shakes her head, then once she stops, she laughs as she catches sight of herself in the bar mirror—her wet hair is plastered to her skull, black mascara streaks her cheeks.
After a pause, Philip says, Do you play tennis?
Why? Nina asks. Is that your criterion for falling in love?
Yes, Philip answers.
I do. I’m pretty good, she says.
In spite of his limp—on the court, it all but disappears—Philip plays well. He is tall and has a long reach; at net, few balls get past him. Once a week, at eight thirty on Tuesday mornings, he has a standing appointment to play men’s doubles. He plays indoors on a clay court and none of the four men he plays with is a mathematician. Nothing can deter Philip from going to his weekly tennis game.
He played two days ago, Nina recollects.
We won again, he tells her when he gets home. We are invincible, he says and laughs.
I served a couple of aces, he also boasts.
Philip puts a spin on his serve that makes the ball bounce high and out of his opponent’s reach.
“If the sco
re in a tennis game reaches deuce, what is the probability that the server will win the next two points?” is one of the problems he poses his students in class. No one answers. “You all play tennis, don’t you?” Philip asks. “You know how the scoring works—when the two players reach a tie, which in tennis is called deuce, one player has to win the game by two successive points. Since there is no limit to the number of deuces in a game,” he continues, “the problem may appear infinite but it’s not.”
Fault, Nina says out loud.
They always argue on the tennis court.
Out, out, the ball was out, she shouts at him.
No way, Philip shouts back as he walks to the net and peers over it to where his serve landed. It was in. You must be blind.
With her racket, Nina points to a mark outside the line. The ball landed here. See.
I don’t see anything. You’re lying.
Cheater, she yells.
“Trust me.” Smiling, Philip turns around to address the class. “In tennis, the server always has the advantage. A strong server especially.” Stepping away from the blackboard, Philip stretches out his arm as if holding an imaginary racket and mimes tossing a ball into the air, then swings.
When they step out of the café, the sky is a clear blue again, the only signs that it has rained are the wet, shiny pavement and the orderly streams of water running into the street gutters. Nina’s hair is dry, her face is washed clean. She feels a little light-headed from the brandy as they make their way up the boulevard toward Tante Thea’s apartment.
Before they reach rue de Saint-Simon, Philip stops at a tabac and buys a pack of Gauloise cigarettes, then he takes Nina by the hand as if he is leading her to some unfamiliar but important place.
This time when he comes back from playing tennis, Philip remembers to put his white tennis shorts, polo shirt, and socks in the laundry hamper.
And, yesterday, Marta must have taken them out and washed them.
She hugs herself.
She is still wearing Philip’s old yellow windbreaker.
Then, holding up her hands, she twirls the wedding ring on her finger.
Sailing off the coast of Belle-Île one windy summer afternoon, Philip lets go of the tiller for a moment to pull off his ring. The ring is tight on his finger and he has to twist it round and round before he can get it off. Then, frowning, he says something that because of the wind she cannot hear and throws the ring as far out as he can into the sea. Rudderless, the boat has come around and is headed into the wind, the sails are flapping noisily. He is in irons.
No, not true—she is making this up.
She slept with Jean-Marc only three or four times. Not enough to qualify as a proper affair.
Instead, one hand on the tiller, Philip is eating a peach with the other. The peach is ripe and sweet and the juice drips down Philip’s fingers. When he finishes it, he throws the pit into the sea, then, leaning far over the side of the boat, he dips his sticky fingers overboard to rinse them. The water is unexpectedly cold and the ring slips off his finger. Helplessly, Philip watches as it shimmies for an instant in the dark blue water, then the gold ring disappears. A second later, a silver fish with spiny dorsal fins swims by so fast that Philip catches only a glimpse of it—a large sea bass, he guesses, weighing at least ten or twelve pounds. The fish gives a flick of its tail fin as it dives down after the ring, its ugly mouth already open and set to swallow it. In their Volkswagen with over eighty-thousand miles on it, she drives Jean-Marc to Buzzards Bay; he has an appointment to talk to the director of the sailing school. While she waits for him, she walks aimlessly around the New England town, looking through the shop windows and looking at her watch.
I want to examine the programs here, he says to her, in the car, in his accented English.
Her eyes fixed on the road, she nods.
En français, she tells him.
She is awkward with him.
Non, non, I must practice in English, Jean-Marc answers. He is awkward with her.
Except for greeting him with a kiss on both cheeks when he walked through the front door, she has not touched him. Nor has he her. In his suit, dress shirt, and tie, Jean-Marc looks shorter and no longer like himself or the way Nina remembers him in his jeans.
Or taking them off.
She shakes her head to dispel the memory.
Ma chérie is what Philip calls her.
What does Jean-Marc call her?
Nina—he puts the accent on the second syllable, making her name unfamiliar.
A few years after the summer of Nina’s affair with him, Jean-Marc comes to stay for a few days—days he wants to spend investigating New England sailing schools.
On Saturday, Philip suggests they drive to Marblehead.
A perfect day for an outing. We can have lunch and walk around, he says to persuade Nina and Louise.
A historic New England town, Philip tells Jean-Marc in the car, founded in the early 1600s.
Up until the midnineteenth century, it was an important fishing port and commercial center, Philip continues. Now, it’s become more of a seaside resort with large summer homes.
Like Belle-Île, Jean-Marc says.
Together, he and Philip walk around the harbor inspecting the boats; Nina and Louise trail along behind them. A slight wind rattles the halyards on the masts; gulls wheel and cry overhead.
Ma chérie, Philip whispers to her, after they make love the second time in Tante Thea’s apartment.
Philip wears a faded red polo shirt and khakis; he is a head taller than Jean-Marc.
In the restaurant on the wharf, they order lobster rolls for lunch.
Too much mayonnaise, Jean-Marc complains. However, he eats two. He sits next to Louise in the booth, and, putting his hand on her arm, he offers her some of the French fries that come with the lobster roll.
Louise picks at her salad and shakes her head.
You should eat, he tells her. You’re too thin.
Louise shrugs. She is fifteen.
After lunch, they visit a historic mansion. The guide speaks with a Boston accent and tells them about the silver collection, the fall-front mahogany desk made by a local cabinetmaker, the banjo clock, a painted rocking chair.
Do you understand what she is saying? Philip asks Jean-Marc.
Bien sûr, he answers.
Nina stands close to Louise, avoiding Jean-Marc. On the way home, in the car, Jean-Marc insists on sitting in the back, next to Louise.
Louise, Louise.
Asleep now, Nina imagines, in the arms of the handsome young man.
Tall, thin, athletic, lovely Louise.
As a teenager, she is too thin. Skinny.
She hardly eats anything, Nina complains to Philip.
She says she’s a vegetarian.
Leave her alone. The more you badger her about food, the less she’ll eat, Philip says.
What if she becomes anorexic?
Lulu is too competitive to starve herself.
Competitive with whom? Nina asks.
Calm, polite, reasonable is how she always describes Philip.
Intelligent, too, of course.
Even brilliant.
And tall.
Under the quilt, she guesses at the outline of his long, thin legs—the left one has a lump in the middle of it, where the tibia did not set properly—that reach to the foot of the bed.
Again, she reaches over and touches his cheek.
Leaning down, she kisses him gently.
Her lips barely brush his skin.
Tears well up in her eyes.
Red is Philip’s favorite color. If he had his way, everything in the house would be red: the furniture, the curtains, the walls, all covered and painted red.
His car, another Volkswagen, is red.
Colors exist to provoke desire, he likes to say.
She is certain that he is quoting someone.
She glances over at the closet where the red silk coat he brought her back from Hong
Kong hangs in plastic.
Careful not to disturb him, she gets out of bed. In the dark, she feels among her clothes until she gets to the coat and she takes down the hanger. Tearing off the plastic, she undoes the silk frog buttons and slips her arms into the roomy sleeves; she wears the coat over the windbreaker. Inside the closet door, in the mirror, she glimpses herself—too dark to make out the embroidered blue and green peonies—a vague shiny shape. Then she climbs back into bed and lies down next to Philip.
See, she tells him, smoothing out the stiff red silk so that it spreads in tidy folds around her, I’m wearing it now.
Am I desirable? she is tempted to ask.
In her tight-fitting silk qipao, Sofia leads Philip into another room, where her collection of antique blue-and-white Ming bowls is neatly aligned on a shelf.
Beautiful, he says, picking up a bowl—the transparent one with the rough-looking mark.
Careful, Sofia warns him.
But he drops it.
Sofia lets out a little yelp of alarm.
The same little yelp.
Nina has never been to Hong Kong.
Or to Asia.
Bangkok, Chiang Mai, she likes to think, and Siem Reap, where she will watch the sunrise from Angkor Wat, then Luang Prabang.
Luang Prabang, she repeats to herself. She likes the sound of the words—like candy or a sweet dessert.
It will be hot and she will pack light, cotton skirts and T-shirts, she can handwash, comfortable sandals she and Philip can take on and off easily when they visit Wat Arun, the temple made out of broken dishes, when they climb the 309 steps leading up to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, or when they hike through the jungle in search of Banteay Samré and Ta Prohm, the temples left unrestored and enveloped by giant banyan trees—
She and Philip often talk about this trip.
I’d like to go up the Mekong by boat, Philip says. The river is about two thousand miles long—the longest in Southeast Asia—and drains an area of about three hundred thousand square miles, discharging 114 cubic …
Her eyes closed, she sees herself on the deck of the boat as they sail past agile young men, throwing out their fishing nets from the banks of the river, past dark-haired women dressed in colorful sarongs, squatting on the raised decks of their wooden houses, cooking their spicy midday meal, and past naked children splashing and waving at them from the dirty brown water; occasionally a plastic bag floats by or, worse, a bloated dead animal.