Rameau's Niece

by Cathleen Schine

  The music rolled through the room like a wave, bigger than a live orchestra. The floor beneath her vibrated. They listened, Martin pacing, standing here, then over there, checking a wire, turning a knob, while Margaret lay on the couch. After a few minutes, Martin lifted the arm from the record, switched off the turntable and said, "Now listen, I play for you a CD. One of my friend's CDs. I don't know what this is. They are all the same. All horrible. Listen..."

  Margaret heard the rhythm of scratching records and a harsh voice.

  "Face down, ass up, that's the way we like to fuck—"

  Martin turned it off.

  "I am sorry," he said. "I did not know."

  "That record caused the French Revolution," Margaret said.

  Martin kneeled beside her.

  "Are you well, Marguerite?"

  "Don't I look well?"

  "Yes, of course, again, but—"

  "You look well, Martin."

  She put her hand up, curled it around the back of his neck, felt the soft, longish hair there. She pulled him down to her. "I have to know," she said.

  "Know what?"

  "The truth."

  She took his glasses, the thick-framed, oddly shaped glasses, and put them down beside her.

  "Marguerite—"

  "Can you see?" she said.

  "A little. I can see you."

  "And I can see you." She put both arms around his neck and pulled his face to hers. She kissed him on the lips.

  "Ah, you really are drunk," he said.

  "Yes."

  She kissed him again. His lips, the moist, thin lips shaped in a slight, superior pout.

  "Marguerite, I think it is time I took you to bed."

  "Yes," she whispered, kissing his neck. "Yes, do."

  He lifted her up. He was carrying her. Her head was pressed against his shoulder. She felt his belly. He breathed heavily.

  He carried her across a little hall and deposited her in a soft bed.

  "Martin," she said, holding his hands as he sat on the edge of the bed. She ran one hand across the smooth pink shirt, taut across his belly. She felt the silky material of his pants against her arm. His glasses were still in the other room. His hair hung down, straight down, as he leaned above her.

  "I have neglected you, my poor little girl," he said. "Fooling with my wires. You have been so patient." He ran his hand over her forehead. "But now I will take care of you. Relax, Marguerite, and I will take care of you."

  "I'm very relaxed," she said. "Very relaxed." She moved her head in the pillow to show how very relaxed she was. The room began to spin. "Very, very, very relaxed." She held his arm tightly as the room spun faster. "Very, very..." She held him now with both hands, as if she were drowning, which she was, she just wasn't sure what she was drowning in. It was too light to be water, too thick to be air, too invisible, too murky...

  "Darling..." he said urgently.

  "Relaxed..."

  When she woke up, she was alone in a soft bed in a small room bright with sunshine. A pigeon cooed outside. Her head pounded. She sat up slowly.

  Where the hell am I?

  She remembered. She was in a rich man's house. A house with speakers the size of tollbooths. A house with couches and wine, much too much wine. Maybe I'm an alcoholic, as well as a lesbian and an adulterer, she thought.

  An adulterer? What had it been like? Had she enjoyed it? She couldn't remember. It was a curse, this memory of hers. Here she had gone to all this trouble, had betrayed her husband, her wonderful husband (he had been wonderful, hadn't he?), had ventured out on a perilous road in pursuit of wisdom and truth, had waited for hours, hungry and bored, while her lover soldered wires together, had surrendered her virtue shamelessly—and now she couldn't remember?

  Her skirt and blouse and jacket and stockings were hung neatly over the back of a chair. She seemed still to be wearing her underwear. Interesting.

  The sun came in through the sheer white curtains. She closed her burning eyes. She heard footsteps and opened them.

  "You're awake?"

  She mumbled. Or grunted. Maybe it was more like a groan.

  "You need to recover, yes? It was quite a night. You are really something!"

  "I am?" she said thickly. I feel like really something. Really something left to rot really somewhere.

  Martin had brought her some orange juice. Sweet of him. But as Margaret looked at him, she thought, over and over again, What have I done? And why have I done it? I am in the wrong bed with the wrong man. I'm not even in the right house. Or in my right mind. I have made my wrong bed. Now I must lie in it. Is it a lie? Or is this truth? Who cares, anyway? I want to go home and rest my head. But I have no home. Not anymore.

  "You should not drink wine, Margaret."

  "No."

  "You did some things you would not do without wine, I think."

  Uh-oh.

  "But now, you must get up, eat some small something, drink some coffee—"

  "Coffee."

  "I will make you coffee."

  He kissed her on the forehead and went downstairs.

  Margaret pulled her wrinkled clothes on. Her stockings bagged at the knees. She saw a bathroom off the bedroom and went in to splash water on her face. Things I wouldn't do without wine? Things so shocking I have blocked them out entirely!

  She rubbed toothpaste across her teeth with her finger. She looked in the medicine cabinet for aspirin but found only bottle after bottle of Xanax. She considered taking one, then rummaged in her bag, thinking there might be an old aspirin floating around in there. She found a lipstick. Maybe later for that. It seemed hopelessly inadequate now. She found a fuzzy peppermint Life Saver, which she ate. A pen. Dr. Lipi's card. A piece of paper on which was written, "I can't stay here. I need some peace and quiet and isolation—"

  She stopped reading, horrified. Oh God. What had she done? What had she failed to do?

  "Martin!" she said when she found him in the kitchen. "The phone! I must call Edward! I forgot to tell him that I left him!"

  Martin looked puzzled.

  "I left my husband and he doesn't know!" she cried. "He must be so worried. Oh, poor Edward. How could I have been so inconsiderate. I left him a note to tell him I'd left him, and then I left him, but I forgot to leave the note—"

  "Please, please. Do not worry. I have called Edward. Do you think I would not let him know what has happened here?"

  Well, yes, Margaret thought, actually I did think you would not let him know what has happened here.

  "I told him you were here with me," Martin said. He patted her back gently. His beautiful green-and-white shirt was back. Margaret looked at it in alarm.

  "You told him?"

  "He was so very much relieved." Martin smiled in a satisfied way. "Here. Sit down. Drink this coffee. He is happy. I am happy. All are happy."

  Yeah? Well, happiness ain't all it's cracked up to be, then, she thought. "Happy," she said, full of scorn.

  Martin looked at her in confusion. He stood silent for a moment. Then he smiled, as if he understood something.

  "Marguerite, did you think that we, that I, what is the word..."

  Margaret, staring into her coffee cup, felt a familiar burning shame. Fuck, she thought. The word you are looking for is fuck. Baiser in French, is it not? And yes, I thought. But now I see that I was mistaken, as I so often am, and that I have suffered the humiliation and guilt of adultery without even getting to commit adultery. It's an outrage. I've made a complete fool of myself.

  "How could you?" she said.

  "But I didn't..."

  "That's what I mean."

  Martin came toward her, put his hands on her head, and stroked it. His beautiful clothes rustled. His light brown hair fell over his face. His long eyelashes covered his downcast eyes.

  "Marguerite, you are as young as my daughter."

  "Yeah, yeah."

  "You looked so pale, lying there, so innocent and pale, and then you passed out—"
/>   "Christ, I passed out? Did I fucking throw up, too?"

  "No, no."

  "Good."

  "Yes, good."

  "I remember kissing you," Margaret said.

  "Ah."

  "I like you."

  "Oui? Still?"

  "Oui. Still."

  "You are very fine guide, Marguerite." He smiled slightly, hesitantly. "Mar-gar-et."

  "Oh, yeah," Margaret said, burying her face in her hands. "A fine guide." Which way to the Vltava?

  MARGARET STOOD on the corner in her wrinkled silk skirt and blouse and the wrath of humiliation and misapprehension.

  Where to, Virgil?

  I don't know. Where do you want to go?

  Gee, I don't know. I thought you knew. You're the guide.

  Who said I was the guide, why aren't you the guide, why do I always have to be the guide?

  It was the first truly hot day, the June sun bright and ferocious on the yellow taxis. Margaret marched forward, looking in shoe stores. Where to, where to, where to? Home was enemy territory, occupied by a stranger who thought everything was all right. Everything was not all right. It enraged her to think that even for one mistaken moment Edward thought that everything was all right. She refused to let everything be all right. It wouldn't be right if everything were all right. After all she'd done, imagine everything being all right. Only Edward could think everything was all right. What did she have to do, send him a telegram? "EVERYTHING NOT ALL RIGHT STOP WIFE WANTS DENTIST STOP TRIED TO SEDUCE BELGIAN BUT TOO DRUNK STOP LESBIAN STOP."

  And she'd already left a note. At least, she'd meant to leave a note. What more did a person have to do?

  Where to, where to, where to? Richard's maid's room? Narrow, yellow, grim, and mean? That maid's room? Yes, yes. That's your home now, Margaret. You and Richard can grow old together, arguing about who left the ripe, fragrant strawberries out overnight to spoil. As the clocks toll the hours, all the hours at once.

  What's going on? Margaret wondered. I used to be a happy, scholarly housewife. Now I am a frustrated adulteress wandering the streets, seeking shelter in shoe stores. She sat down and tried on a pair of oxfords. Now that she was a lesbian, she supposed she would need more oxfords. A whole closetful. Of course, she already had a closetful of oxfords, so there wouldn't be much point.

  She had forgotten for a while that she was a lesbian, what with all the excitement of passing out in a strange man's bed. But she thought about it now, thought of Lily as she'd last seen her, and she knew it must be true. She could recall vividly the shape of Lily's breasts through a silk blouse—large, curved, a small round nipple showing, pop, in the middle of each one. Those breasts and nipples in white silk were part of a language, a language that, like all language, said something about the world, and Margaret had heard the language and she understood. To find the meaning, understand the use. She looked, she understood the use, she understood the meaning. Maybe, yes maybe, her understanding was not always all that it might be. Martin had clearly been speaking a different language, playing a different game from the one she had been playing, checkers to her chess. But with Lily, she would be more careful. She would limit herself to seeing what was really there. Descriptions, Margaret, not explanations. Then perhaps she would see the truth of the proposition: I am a lesbian, I am Lily's lover.

  Martin was not the true end of her quest. That much she had demonstrated. The path led clearly now to Lily. And she felt anew the force of the odd, giddy determination she had experienced for the last few months, the cold desire. I must know; I will find out. Her failure with Martin made her more avid, rather than less. I must seek, and I must have, she thought. Fuck you, you fake frog. A world of women awaits me!

  She went to Richard's to shower and eat some frozen brownies she found beneath the ice cube tray. And change her clothes. What did one wear? she wondered. For an encounter such as this? This was the other side of the moon. One took a step and flew, high in the air, waiting, waiting to land in the rocky darkness.

  She wore jeans, how butch, and anyway she had nothing else with her except the wrinkled skirt of the night before, a night of confusion and inebriated solecism best left rumpled, with the skirt, on the floor.

  Outside, the heat had diminished slightly and there was a breeze of just below body temperature. The sun was low and the buildings glowed with pink, as if they were healthy buildings. What a beautiful afternoon, almost evening, really. A beautiful time of day. Just right for a seduction.

  Margaret took the bus across town, into the setting sun. She squinted and she felt warm, in spite of the air-conditioning. The sun was low but everywhere, poking its nose in where it didn't belong. Go away, this is a bus, a city bus. Go to Kansas. Or Abu Dhabi. Margaret put her arm over her eyes.

  Uncomfortable in the sunlight, hung over, and nervous about Lily, she was breathing in a shallow, unsatisfying way and tried to catch her breath. Was it necessary, she wondered, to do what she was about to do? Simply because she thought Lily was attractive? Her collie had been a beautiful collie, but she had never tried to kiss it on the lips.

  Margaret, Lily would say, you're in denial.

  You lived in a dream with Edward, Margaret told herself, allowing him to look at you with his icy blue eyes and make you think that the reflection you saw there was really you. Now you can't look in his eyes, there is no reflection to bask in. You yourself must observe and let others bask in what they see in your eyes. Maybe you should teach more, stand in front of a room and look out at eyes waiting for you to speak, wanting something from you, demanding that you guide them, fill them with knowledge, make them whole.

  She remembered going to a talk of Edward's, just after they'd met. She remembered how he walked to the front of the room, how he stood absolutely still for a fraction of a second, how his stillness caught the attention and the imagination of the entire roomful of young men and women, how they stared at him, how he seemed to grow as they stared, how he suddenly, absurdly, held out his arms.

  He stood in front of his audience with his arms out as if he were greeting the dawn, as if a crowd were cheering him, as if Margaret were running toward him to be embraced, which she longed to do. Her heart had beat faster; her heart had literally beat faster then.

  "Goood mooorning," he had bellowed in his richest accent. And he had started to speak and never stopped for the next two hours as Margaret watched, tense and overwhelmed.

  I observed then, she thought. I observed every nuance of every sweep of his arm. I observed him and the air around him, the air he breathed.

  Well, those days are over. Not a student anymore. Thank God and Madame de Montigny, not a teacher either, but not a student enthralled in a class. Now my husband has other students and I must make my own classes. Lily will be my class. I will study Lily.

  Lily's buzzer was broken as usual, the front door unlocked, and Margaret hurried up the flight of dark stairs. Lily opened her door, and Margaret forgot Edward, forgot her reservations. Lily's eyes looked bigger and darker. The scent of roses, faint and uncertain, was on Lily's cheek when Margaret kissed it, a hello kiss, familiar, but not the same now. Lily's cheek was soft, softer than a man's, softer even than a boy's, Margaret thought. As soft as a woman's cheek, genius.

  Lily's lips touched her cheek lightly. "Margaret, why didn't you call?"

  The last time I saw you, Margaret thought, I said to myself, I am walking toward Lily and I am going to kiss her on the lips. Everything dissolved but that one thought: I am walking toward Lily and I am going to kiss her on the lips. Then I didn't. But now I will.

  Lily closed the door and began to say something but stopped. Perhaps she stopped because Margaret put her hand on Lily's waist. Margaret felt the curve of it and found it even more difficult to breathe. She put her other hand on Lily's waist.

  "Margaret?" Lily whispered in her tart whisper through her tart lips, a whisper and lips Margaret had always found so amusing in their contrast to what Lily said. But now they didn't seem amu
sing at all. They didn't seem to be in contrast to anything at all. They seemed like red lips and a soft, questioning whisper.

  "Margaret?" Lily whispered again, almost alarmed, almost as alarmed as I am, Margaret thought.

  Margaret said, "I, um, well..."

  She ran her hand up Lily's back, moving closer to her, moving very close to her, thinking, No wonder men like women, no wonder men like to touch women. Lily was wearing a bathrobe. She realized that for the first time now, a vintage satin bathrobe, beneath which she felt Lily, her hands felt Lily. One hand caught in the tie. The robe was opening in the front revealing one of Lily's round, large breasts.

  Yikes, Margaret thought.

  "Margaret, hold on—"

  Hold on? Hold on to what? The room looked funny, dim and far away. Her face was pressed against Lily's short black hair. She could feel a woman's body against hers, a naked female breast, a crushed satin bathrobe, a curved waist beneath her hands, a smooth, rose-scented neck beneath her lips, soft lips beneath her own lips.

  "Margaret, for Christ sake, take it easy—"

  Take it easy?

  Lily stepped back and gently pushed Margaret away.

  "Look, Margaret, I mean I never expected this, I didn't know you, well ... but I'm flattered, sort of, but, what are you"—she bit her lip, her pretty lip—"doing? Exactly?"

  Exactly? Margaret thought. Exactly, I am holding on to a half-naked woman's gently curved waist. Exactly!

  "Lily?" said a voice.

  Whose voice is that? Margaret wondered. It's not Lily's voice. It's not my voice, although it's somehow almost my voice. It's as familiar as my voice. It's a man's voice. It's Edward's voice, actually.

  Margaret let go of Lily's waist.

  "Lily, I need a towel," said the voice.

  The voice needed a towel. Edward's voice needed a towel. Why would Edward's voice be in Lily's apartment and in need of a towel? Well, it wouldn't unless it was wet. Why would Edward's voice be wet? Well, it wouldn't unless it was taking a shower. In Lily's apartment.

  "Edward?" Margaret whispered. She looked at Lily, who turned away, tying her robe around her tighter.