The Bodice Ripper

by Byron Rempel

  “I will leave,” Zap said. “Your turret just needs a little paint now. You could do it yourself. You could do everything yourself. You could live your life yourself.”

  Zap looked at her. Anna had never seen his eyes so soft.

  “Pearl,” the director said, “she took appropriate risks. He didn’t kill her. He freed her.”

  Christophe rolled his eyes.

  “I’m going away, you won’t see me for a long time. I’m going

  to build a castle too,” Zap said. “They need help with their turrets.”

  “You see,” Christophe said.

  “I hope your nun finds what she’s looking for. In that arid desert.”

  At the mention of her romance novel, Zap ripped back a veil of night to reveal her private sun, everything she thought hers and protected. She prepared to turn into to dust. But instead she stood alive and alone. She hoped her eyes appeared soft too. Anna turned and walked away and didn’t look back.

  Christophe glared at Zap, and followed her. Jackson Zaporzan watched with the director, and grinned. He bowed, and swept his top hat in front of him. The director dropped a coin inside.

  [

  He held Sunlight in his hands. Sanjay’s smile was rigid. He said, “I have finished my story,” and set the bottle in her hands.

  “Thank you, Sanjay.”

  “I mean, I have thrown it away.” He looked behind him. “I gave up the script of my romantic comedy. I wished Ms. V. to play the lead. She is beautiful but cannot act her way out of a samosa. My wife is relieved. But I finally had my writing quoted. In a book on how to write. In the chapter on over-use of beautiful adjectives.”

  “I’m happy.”

  “You say you are happy, but you are sad. Mr. Zap has moved out. He came to say goodbye too. He apologized that he rented the house to a fraternity.”

  “I rented mine to Audrey.”

  Sanjay nodded. He glanced at the two houses and grimaced.

  Christophe had to do nothing to convince Anna. After the funeral he said, “Let’s get out of here.” And Anna instantly knew what he meant. She was almost one hundred percent sure she knew what he meant. She asked just in case.

  “To Paris?”

  He looked at her for a few moments with those dark eyes. “Of course to Paris.” He smiled broadly. She realized she’d rarely seen him like that. Almost exposed. She didn’t mention marriage. He’d probably crumble in a pile of vulnerability.

  They ran to her house. Anna laughed and swore. He said he wanted to calm her down and brought her to her bedroom, and he petted her naked back for almost a minute before he flipped her over. He laughed too, and swore in imitation of her, and when he entered her his eyes scared her almost more than his hands around her neck.

  The invitation to Paris wasn’t like she imagined it. But then she’d imagined a lot of things, hadn’t she. And everything else back here was dead.

  [

  Anna kept imagining. She thought meeting with Dmitri would be awkward and cold. He’d offered her the “terminal year” contract to stay and wrap things up in the next year, but just the sound of the contract made her uncomfortable. Dmitri tried to make her comfortable, but without shifting blame. If she wanted to appeal, she could. Or they could try and spin the romance novel. Anna squinted at him, trying to see where he’d heard about that, but was too afraid to ask.

  “The romance novel,” he said, “could be an ironic twist on gender commentary. That gender says how we should be, not how we are. Look at Diane Silverbow.”

  He pointed to a picture on his desk. Yes, they were seeing

  each other.

  “But her name is not Silverbow. She is Diane Silverstein. And I am not convinced about the Diane part. She was fulfilling how she thought she should be. And me too. Dressed as Napoleon every year.”

  “You’re a good exile,” Anna said.

  “But if you stay for Terminal, you’ll see my new costume.

  Next year at History Faculty Welcomes, I will come as Chief the Crazy Horse.”

  “Or the Sitting Bull,” Anna said.

  But no, she wouldn’t stay for the terminal year. A year of shame and winter, versus a new spring and exotic romance in Paris. If she didn’t leave with Christophe, she’d end up living in her mom’s sewing room upstairs. Assisted living.

  So they gave her classes to Audrey. She’d already said ‘contract adjunct’ was the new tenure. But Audrey was a foreign country.

  Anna left Dmitri’s office without tears.

  In the morning Anna, ill-slept, stood dressed at the bedroom door and listened to the self-satisfied snorts of her destiny and told him in a voice softer than snow that they would leave for their Paris. In the first days of spring or forever, mercy me.

  23. The Queen of Coleridge Park

  With stubborn joy Anna flung open the shutters and beamed into the golden thread of Paris streets. Her tangle of rosy hair hid her nakedness and flapped from the window like a bride’s bed sheets. She was no longer a predictable girl from the suburbs, she was Queen of Heaven, she was Satan’s masterpiece, she was the Form of Light.

  She stood on her toes and watched her stained white shirt float from the window to the river below. The Seine caught it and carried it away, detoured it around Notre Dame. The shirt could fly, but Anna was grounded. Done with flight. She would linger forever in this bedroom with the windows open to splendour, despite the chill, despite the sudden replacement of sun with cloud. Rochester the cat perched on the sill, satisfied as Anna was to watch the world glide by the window.

  This morning like no other, in a tasteful fortress on the Seine.

  She and Christophe ran from spite and gossip. An academic Bonnie and Clyde. Brigitte and Serge. Two cells as one, the burden of isolation lifted with sunrise. They could not stop the laughter inflight while they traded stories of their employers and students and indiscretions, and breezed through the curiosity of customs with a medicated cat. She felt the power of last night’s wine in her veins. They landed, they drank, he told her to tie up her hair, she was in France now. In the next seconds she spilled wine on her shirt. Tomorrow she—they— would shop at Printemps for a month’s wardrobe if need be.

  Like no other, of delicious uncertainty.

  “We can close this window?” Christophe through layers of pillow and Pomerel. She turned, gazed upon his form, his body free from the sheets, golden too. His arm draped over his eyes, his sex tumescent in morning glory.

  “Off with my overcoat, off with my gloves,” Anna sang, “who needs an overcoat, I’m burning with love.”

  “Je dois aller pisser.”

  She straddled him.

  Last night he passed out. The jet lag, the red-eye, the red wine. She watched him sleep, listened to the bass rumble of his breath. Anna was the downfall of all men, none could resist; but this would have to wait. She delayed her attack on the castle of love till dawn.

  Now she slid on top of him and wondered, how would her nun scale his walls? How would she make him love her?

  Thesis: Every (medieval) history student knows of The Dove’s Neck-Ring, of Ibn Hazm. The fire that is latent in flint remains hidden—unless friction occurs.

  Thesis: A lack of love can be supplemented with a love potion administered daily among high-risk subjects. A modern-day medical miracle. A dash of testosterone and estrogen for the first weeks; an ounce each of pheromones and dopamine for the thrill; topped up with oxytocin for that long-lasting flavour. And three tines of wild rose thorns.

  Christophe rubbed his temples. The potion had lingering side effects. May cause dizziness, loss of self, changes in patterns and rhythms of speech, lack of appetite, confusion about identity, place and time, false or unusual sense of well-being, pain, fear, death. Anna stopped the friction. She took Christophe’s hands and pinned them behind his head.

 
“I must go.” He lifted her off, a dove to him, feather and hollow bone. She watched him move across the room. The room was his, Paris was his, her body. He stretched and she imagined a wild cat. He walked through the doorway a lion and when he came back she would tame him. Not a young thing anymore, but more attractive because of it. Waited for others to make the kill. A steady pace, all the strength in the shoulders, blinking, as if he last ate three days ago and is still unconcerned with dinner. He needs nothing. He doesn’t even need her. Not like she needs him. Anna sits on the edge of the bed. She would offer her neck to this lion of Paris. Because he didn’t need her.

  And all she asked in return was herself, and his universe.

  Christophe came back, pants on, held a fresh white shirt. The conference was starting, no more time. He wasn’t happy to leave, he said, but they wanted him to speak so much they were even willing to pay.

  “They got you in there quickly,” Anna said.

  “Connections,” he said.

  She ran her hand down his breastbone while he buttoned between the fingers.

  “I’m staying,” she said. “Rochester and me.”

  “Of course.”

  “No more conferences.”

  “Ever again. They’re not for you.”

  “Get out of here. My love.” She kissed him, any open skin. “I need you to leave.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched.

  She pushed him away and closed the linen curtains. The sun played no more across his chest. She would chain herself to his desk. She would be free. She would complete her romance within these walls, unencumbered and open, free to create and explore. Someday she would go back to Montreal, collect her things, sell her house. But not now. Neither during the summer. The sounds of this tiny Parisian isle, the clatter of tourists and boats, the smells of diesel and urban river. The dust would settle. And clothes—she would no longer wear clothes. The costume she wore was the last she needed.

  Christophe laughed. “You are only in love.”

  He understood her. They were the same. They were unlike anyone else.

  [

  We rode through the uncharted forests of Iberia, avoiding thieves and villages and wolves. We cut through thick forests and mosquito-filled marshes, forded rivers and drank brackish water. This was as far as I’d travelled from my home and abbey. I’d never gone more than a day’s journey, and that was by foot. We saw no inns. The Moor kept us away from people. I could tell from the way his brow furrowed when he saw strangers in the distance that he had no love for them, whatever their belief. His hand went more readily to his belt and daggers when we saw people than when we saw beasts. He smelled them before he saw them. His broad nose up, his eyes dark. He muttered unintelligible language. But when he smelled the red deer he lay still in the dirt. His skin dark and his ivory robes, the red ochre of his sash, the coarseness of his wiry beard on my alabaster skin. The sun of Al-Andalus, the warmth of his devotion to animals was like his devotion to me. He lifted the horse’s hooves one by one with barely a tickle on their fetlocks, checking for rot and wear. He hobbled the horse by tying the legs together. The horse was black like the Moor, and free as I felt. Tiny steps would never take it far. Occasionally he would give the horse a day off, and the two of us would walk leagues beside it. I grew to love the animal as I grew to love the Moor. He was a silly thing, scared of quick rabbits but happy to squash snakes underfoot. But like the Moor he had no fear of travel. I had heard the stories of the Moors and Arabs, of their migrations, their trade over the seas, the annual pagan pilgrimage to the Ka’aba in Mecca. Both of these beasts, man and horse, had undoubtedly seen the world.

  And yet, I was seized by a terrifying doubt: where in that world was he taking me? The romance we discovered, did he truly feel it? Why would he take me so many days’ journey from my land?

  That night by the waters he spread the patterned carpets under the watchful eyes of unseen beasts, hidden from hounds and hunters.

  With murderous glances, languishing; their eyelids are sheaths for glances like swords.

  I, Harmonía, let down my plaited locks then, and mourned that I should sleep, and die, and not see my love tomorrow.

  I lay in his arms and burned in the fire of passion, offered the final solace, and it left me in ashes; and it left me the core of who I was. But when I took back all who I was through the Moor, he lay on his carpets on the sand an ordinary man.

  Anna believed the air of Paris was to blame for the changes in her writing. How had her Moor become ordinary? Nobody wanted to read about an ordinary man. And hadn’t she killed the horse back at the abbey? And when had Angeles renamed herself Harmonía?

  One day we came closer to a village than I had seen for days, desperate for food and water. I knew the danger. Men killed a stranger sooner than ask questions. Unchecked, strangers made their way into sheltered places and sowed havoc and sorrow. They questioned and bred strange habits. Pilgrims from other worlds, heading towards Santiago or farther. To the site of miracles. Like the site of our own miracle. Someday, not far away, the world would discover the place we, the nun and Moor, invented romance, and they would build a shrine filled with relics—his dagger, my torn cloaks, the fringe of his red sash—and pilgrims would flock to the holy sands. But for now we lovers were hunted, for now we were feared. A devil and his familiar.

  He devised a tent for me, on top of the horse. I would be covered completely, my pink skin shielded from the restless gazes of men. A Moor leading a Christian woman might be excuse enough for a battle. And no one even with the hint that I was a nun. Was once a nun. That now I am

  a woman, slender, lissome, of fresh beauty, filling the caravan with fragrance of herself. By her is every desert peopled, and by her is every mirage transformed to abundant water.

  He was drawn to water all the time. Whenever he found some he dismounted and performed his ablutions. After love if there was no water near (I could tell he was in the mood when he began to search for streams) he would use some of our precious drinking water. In the canyons I revealed the rose-shaped bruise on my thigh, and he showed me how to bathe.

  He scooped up the water and began with his mouth. His lips glistened with sweat and me and he rinsed them off. He rinsed his nose and all he could smell. He stood naked by the river and poured water over his head three times, over his right shoulder, over his left shoulder. His hands to the wrists. He shook the dust of roads and kingdoms from his feet.

  The Moor took my hand and motioned for me to wash my mouth. The water was clear and fresh. It hung on my lips. I licked them. I followed his pantomimes for the rest. My fine nose, my thin fingers, shoulders, between my legs. He poured water over my wheat-coloured hair and I shivered. Right shoulder, left shoulder. He took each foot in his hands and with caresses made them clean. In his deep voice he intoned prayers or wishes. I laughed when he toweled me dry, left me standing on a rock by the waters. From the baggage on his horse he produced a leather satchel, small but heavy. It made metallic noises. He set it down in front of me. He undid the rope and reached in, and pulled out an armlet set with rubies, and bracelets, this one silver, the other gold. He slid them high on my wrists. On my fingers rings of sapphire, around my neck a silver pendant shaped like a crescent moon, filled with cloth soaked in perfumes. Last, a pair of intricate gold earrings set with glazed quartz. But my ears were not pierced, so the Moor did it right there with a needle. I didn’t move until the earrings hung from my sensitive lobes. Then the Moor produced a pot of oil, and his strong hands and fingers covered every part of my body with it until I shone in the waning light. And then I wanted a mirror, something I had not seen since I was young, and so bent over the river and watched my fragmented finery. As I bent I reached out to the Moor to steady myself, and he took my hand, and the other, and he bound them together behind my back with a soft cord.

  I laughed at him again. But he didn’t laugh. He withdre
w from his baggage another package, and pulled out a white cotton haik and wrapped it around me. Then he lifted me to the top of the horse and fastened the tent over me. That was the last time I saw him alive.

  “You are what?”

  “In Paris. I’m not sending you my book. I can bring it to you in person.”

  “For how long?”

  “I may stay here the rest of my life.”

  “Wonderful. You finally gave birth.”

  “No, I…”

  “Birth of Romance. With your professor? Have a pancake for me. So, what did the Moor do?”

  “He kidnapped her. He’ll sell her into slavery.”

  Silence. More of that.

  “So you gave up the university.”

  “It was mutual.”

  “For writing. For the money and glory.”

  “For now.”

  “Good girl. Okay, history. First Romance Novel. The Sheik. 1919. You with me? Still in print. Kidnapped and raped by the Sheik, heroine suffers violent treatment so falls in love with her tormentor. Another Sheik kidnaps her away. Sheik One gets her back—he’s wounded, what. Realizes he loves her so: sends her away. She grabs a pistol, uh-huh, tries to kiss herself goodbye, Sheik stops her and never lets her go, end.”

  Silence from Anna this time.

  “So,” Julia said.

  “So.”

  “It can’t be the last time she sees him.”

  “No it can’t.”

  “You’ve got a rolling start to the romance. Now how does it end. You’ve got to write to the end. For the end. We all end. And romances set in the Medieval thingy, they end with the mujer second banana to the hombre. Who above all, fortunately, wants to fulfill her wishes. Call me when you’re done.”

  “Mu-jair?”

  “Mu-hair. However you say it, it’s woman.”

  I knew my fate. I had heard it whispered back at the abbey, the stories of my childhood, of whole villages of women abducted by pirates. Caravans crossing a vast desert, horrid barbarities visited on Christian ladies. One nun nothing.