Thérèse and Isabelle

by Violette Leduc

  “Have you any money?”

  Isabelle held out her money and I held out mine.

  “Which should I take?”

  “Both.”

  “Yes, both,” said Isabelle.

  “Did you find it a good bed?”

  Mme Algazine looked at us. She was counting the notes.

  “Yes,” I said dully, “it was good.” Isabelle gave her hat a punch.

  “No. Your beds are not good,” said Isabelle.

  Mme Algazine scratched her chin with our folded notes.

  “We are in a hurry. Please, open the door,” said Isabelle.

  Mme Algazine went on tickling her chin with the notes.

  “Was the port not good?”

  “Excellent but we must be going,” said Isabelle.

  “The door is open,” said Mme Algazine, by way of farewell.

  “We still have half an hour left to buy things. We mustn’t dally,” said Isabelle.

  “What things?”

  “You’ll see,” said Isabelle.

  Her gloved hand seized mine.

  “Give me your bag . . . so I can carry it.”

  “You like that, carrying my bag?” she asked.

  The evening light at six o’clock was not crisp; the houses were growing bored.

  I plucked a betrothal flower out of a clump of privet, in the street with the charcoal depot, I stuck it in Isabelle’s fist.

  “. . . I was counting the nights we’ll have until the summer holidays. We’ll have plenty,” said Isabelle.

  She led me into the best tearoom in town.

  The tables were not yet cleared away, the ring of chatter lingered, the scent of blond tobacco mixed with the scents of the departed customers.

  “Why are we here? Are you hungry?”

  “No,” said Isabelle.

  “Me neither.”

  “Give me my bag, though,” said Isabelle.

  I gave it to her and fled from the patisserie.

  At last I bought the two roses I had wanted for her. I saw her again while I was at the till, paying for the flowers. Isabelle was looking for me, biting her lip. My love was clear eyed but it was love. I hid the flowers inside my jacket.

  “Very clever!” she said. “Why did you run out?”

  We were going back up the rue de la Maroquinerie.

  “Let’s stop here. Choose the bag you like best and I’ll buy it for you. I will carry it when we’re alone in the corridors at school,” I said.

  “It’s as if you were giving me a keepsake, as if you were going away. Don’t buy me anything,” said Isabelle.

  The shop assistant was setting a box calf drum in a corner of the shop window.

  “Let’s go back to school. It’s time to go,” said Isabelle.

  “I would but you’re not moving.”

  “I’m frightened of the future,” said Isabelle.

  “Frightened . . . you!”

  “I’m miserable, Thérèse.”

  The town snapped in two.

  “If you’re unhappy I will die.”

  “Don’t talk. Hold my arm tight, look at the window display. We must go back to school but I feel as though we mustn’t. I’m frightened,” Isabelle said again.

  “Let’s leave school. We won’t die of hunger.”

  “They’ll catch us. We would be parted straight away. Keep me warm,” said Isabelle.

  “Don’t be unhappy.”

  “Look! In the mirror. See . . . they’re pointing at us,” said Isabelle.

  It was raining threatening fingers. Still, our confidence was enough to charm the cobbles. The azure sky between far-off branches mussed our hair.

  “Are we running away?”

  “Where to?” said Isabelle.

  “To Madame Algazine’s.”

  “That was a bad idea.”

  Our school reappeared; we felt our connection to the great, nameless family that would be studying in the study rooms before dinner. I went by the dormitory for the sake of the roses, and hid them in my dirty laundry bag.

  At seven o’clock, Isabelle came into the refectory following the others.

  I threw my napkin under the table, I bent down to whisper that I would carry her handbag and that I would carry the zephyr too, if the zephyr were tiring her.

  She was coming. I counted her steps down the long passage. Fifteen drumrolls thundered in my heart. How many times was I put to death during her coming. The same citadel of love was nearing: my throat contorted.

  Isabelle was watching the ardent blue: Isabelle loved me at the hour of sunset on the stained-glass window. The monitor called my name from the far end of the refectory.

  “Do wake up,” said another girl.

  Isabelle was also calling me; Isabelle was sucking the colors from me:

  “Do you love me? Do you still love me?” I entreated with every look.

  The monitor told me that I should not go to study, that I should go up to the dormitory to rest, that it was an order from the head monitor.

  The day was declining, my cell fading away, down blowing from the lips of my absent beloved. Night was taking over; night, our swans’ wing covering. Night, our canopy of gulls.

  I focused my flashlight, shone it on the flowers I had bought, savored the air of occasion. The night drew outlines around the roses in the gardens outside.

  I began the leisurely toilette of a bride-to-be; as I soaped, I hid fronds of orange flowers between my legs, under my arms; I paraded a trail of cool scent around my cell; I proceeded into the passage with the scepter of our future, I entered Isabelle’s cell: her belongings were austere, her bed abandoned. I slipped out of time. I stayed waiting, my face hidden in my hands.

  The girls came in like an invading army; the monitor had turned on the lights. I could not escape. The girls were running down the passage, shouting, laughing.

  “You! In my box!”

  Arm outstretched, she was clutching the curtain that she had roughly wrenched back on its rail, into this frame she brought her hair wild at the close of the day, her haunted face, her potent eyes.

  My dressing-gown cord fell onto the rug. Isabelle stared at my nightgown.

  “Oh,” she said, “it’s so white . . .”

  She threw me onto her bed, she entered but drew out again straight away. A little girl had lifted the curtain, a little girl was looking at us. She fled, she screamed:

  “Blood, I saw blood!”

  “Back to your box!” ordered Isabelle.

  Isabelle looked at her three bloody fingers.

  I ran out.

  “What is going on?” asked the monitor, leaving her bedroom and coming a few paces into the passage.

  I slipped into my bed, I looked at the red stain on my nightgown.

  “Just a cut. It’s already dry,” said Isabelle.

  “A bad one?” asked the monitor.

  There was a troubling silence.

  “I bleed easily,” said Isabelle.

  I got out of bed, I repaired the damage inflicted by my warrior.

  “Isabelle . . .”

  Wresting her name from me, the new monitor tarnished my Isabelle.

  “Yes,” replied Isabelle, quite naturally, as she went on brushing her teeth.

  “Is it really nothing, just a cut?” asked the monitor.

  “It’s nothing at all,” said Isabelle, her mouth full of dental paste froth.

  Girls were chattering over the vigorous fragrance of the eau de cologne; Isabelle was getting into bed and the bedsprings were free to creak.

  The monitor began her round.

  “Good night, mademoiselle,” murmured one girl.

  The lights were turned out in the passage.

  A foolhardy lover brushed against my curtain, left a little of her secret in the curtain’s folds. The whisperings sank into an abyss. The dormitory gave way to sleep.

  I too was heavily struck with drowsiness. I dreamed: Isabelle was holding my wrist, trailing my hand and the flowers over my sex
. I woke up lacerated, greedy.

  I waited by the window with the roses, imagining Isabelle’s arrival. The curtain lifted just as I was gazing at it, seeing nothing. Isabelle came in; centuries of love sighed. Isabelle in a negligee, the broad-winged collar of her nightgown folding down over her dressing-gown lapels, Isabelle had the preoccupied gaze of a queen.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  I laid the roses on the bed, I let myself slide down, I pressed kisses on her feet. Isabelle did wish me to adore her. The flowers fell, we feared that the leaves’ rustling might awaken the monitor, but the night’s surprise was Isabelle’s face next to mine.

  “You put on your schoolgirl dress,” she said.

  She felt the crispness of the pleats. Her cheek followed the slope from my groin to my knee.

  A water lily bloomed in my stomach, the veil of the white lady floated over my moors.

  “Come,” she said, with assurance.

  We crossed the passage, we entered Isabelle’s box.

  The doily on her night table lent its impulse of whiteness, the pillow was innocent. She was breaking the flowers’ stems in two.

  Where had my roses come from? When had she taken the tooth-glass from the dressing table? When had she poured the water? When had she bent over the washbowl? I was considering Isabelle in the shadows of all the world’s countries.

  “Where are you?” she said.

  I shook the night from my shoulders as you shake snow from a winter hood; the roses leaning over the lip of the tooth-glass were my equals, roses for a boarding-school girl.

  “Breathe them in,” said Isabelle.

  I was struck dumb.

  “Breathe them in!”

  She put the glass and its roses in my hands, tossed her hair back, revealed her high, open collar to me, her neck. My flashlight and the tooth-glass knocked together.

  I trailed garlands of bronze, suspended cast-iron roses around her neck.

  “Ceremony, ceremony,” I said, severely.

  Isabelle was shielding her neck, inflamed all over by my touch. She stepped back but watched me intimately. The distress was growing; the sky, a single cloud, lingered inside me: the rope of my desire was spinning out between my legs. Eye to eye, we summoned each other. We had either to die or bring ourselves to act. I came to.

  “Open your collar.”

  I had my eyes closed, I was listening for the sound of her unbuttoning her nightgown.

  “I’m waiting for you,” said Isabelle.

  The rosy eyes were looking at me, the rose in the tooth-glass was leaning their way. My arms fell back; I was ready to become their martyr. They were sending out their shafts of warmth and already their silken shapes were heavy against my empty hands. I moved toward them and, like fruit, they ripened without spoiling. They were swelling: I entrusted the sun to them. Leaning against the partition, Isabelle was watching them as I did.

  “Do up your collar,” I said.

  As on other nights, a whisper from one of the girls refreshed the night.

  Isabelle smiled down at her breasts. I know where I would make love to her if I had her still: I would make love to her in a sheepfold, among the low-slung ewes’ bellies.

  Isabelle undid my nightgown, Isabelle hesitated, Isabelle was greedy. I was not helping her: I was savoring the ardor of a queen let loose. The sigh tumbled from the tree of silence, two throats thrust forward, four springs of sweetness shone out. Breasts suckled my breasts, absinthe was flowing in my veins.

  “Better than this,” begged Isabelle.

  It did not leave my mouth as we dropped slowly onto the parquet.

  I was sheltering it in my hands, holding on to its weight of warmth, of pallor, of affection. My belly was starving for illumination.

  “Caress it,” said Isabelle.

  “No!”

  I opened my mouth, it entered. I was biting down on precious veins, I remembered that bruising: it was choking me. My hand faded away in smoke, my hand dropped, resonating. Such a crowd of voyeurs, the shadows above us . . . You’re looking down.

  “What can you be afraid of?” said Isabelle.

  I was muttering evasively about her neck. Magnets below Isabelle’s chin were attracting me. My flashlight fell onto the rug.

  “You’ll get us caught!” said Isabelle.

  “Your neck . . .”

  She accepted the worship without basking in it.

  Sly, I looked for the channel between her breasts and it was in response to my hypocritical gaze that she drew the collar of her gown closed. The gateway between her eyes and mine opened: we had regained the freedom of loving and looking. My gaze was returned like waves that crash down into themselves. I tamed the mirrors in her eyes, she tamed the mirrors in my eyes.

  Isabelle settled on my lap:

  “Say that we have time. Say it.”

  I did not reply.

  The night was cooling our coupled lips.

  “I am counting the hours we have left,” said Isabelle.

  The time came and moved on with its veils of black crepe. I was sheltering Isabelle with her long hair, winding it around her neck.

  “Stay, stay some more,” said Isabelle.

  We held each other close, but we could not be sheltered from the great tide of hours; rather, night in the great courtyard, night from the town came over us.

  “I’m cold,” said Isabelle.

  We heard a tree’s shroud cracking in the wind.

  “I’m frightened of the time that’s passing,” said Isabelle.

  I made myself laugh. I turned on the light.

  Isabelle looked at her watch:

  “It’s eleven o’clock, Thérèse. Turn it off.”

  She stood up: my seasick knees took me aback.

  I fell at her feet, reunited with my bouquet.

  “You must come to my mouth,” said Isabelle.

  I heard the rustle of funereal skirts. It was her hair that she was pushing away.

  Isabelle shook the battery inside her watchcase.

  “I must put the clock forward,” I said, “we must do that.”

  She gave me her wristwatch:

  “What else have we left now?”

  “We shall stay ahead,” I said.

  I was molding a spun-glass doe, touching it without quite reaching it, but with my jeweller’s tongue I dropped jewels into her mouth.

  She wiped her lips with my hand, she pretended indifference.

  “Don’t go on.”

  She escaped my arms: there I was, powerless over the swarms languishing in my belly. Isabelle threw herself at my neck.

  I took her up where I had left her. Our mouths one on the other opened into an easy dream. I tipped her upside down without losing my hold, I cupped her head in my hands as I always did, as I would have held the weight of a decapitated head. I entered. I noticed a trace of dental paste, a souvenir of freshness. Our limbs were ripening, our cadavers decomposing. Exquisite decay. I half-opened my eyes: Isabelle was watching me. I had declared war inside her mouth; I had been beaten. An oriental melody snaked among my bones, the threnody circled in my elbows, in my knees. There was a blessing in my blood; my death gave way to corruption. I was purifying her gums, I still wanted to obliterate Isabelle with my kiss. I thanked her twice with two other, businesslike kisses on her hands. Little heads were turning: nighttime sparrows observing us.

  We got into bed, we listened to the sheets’ crispness. The night was leaning in and watching over us, the night was offering us a virginal final scene.

  Isabelle took my hand, she pressed it down on the gilded tangle.

  “Don’t move,” said Isabelle.

  My hand aspired to the moistness of a cowshed. Isabelle would come with her arm crossed over mine, with her forthright hand, with a dream that would come to rest on my hair.

  “Be quiet, be quiet!”

  Isabelle was speaking to the two hands, each cradling its kingdom.

  Inside, my calves are full of
rags; I bear the summer weight of the climbing rose. The hordes . . . have pity . . . now I can no longer hold you at bay.

  I was watching, hoping for a movement from the delicate hand. My heart was beating in my eyelids, in my throat.

  “I can’t go on!”

  I have destroyed everything: our hands, our arms, our tangled hair, the silence, the night.

  We parted, we waited for each other, we saw fear’s chasm open between us. If the thread of our waiting should break, we shall fall into the bowels of the earth. I lay facedown, I hugged myself close with my fever.

  Isabelle dragged me into the middle of the bed, she mounted me, she lifted me up, let the air flow around my armpits.

  You rode me: this wasn’t new. You lit a powder keg of memories. Encountering you, I found a sense in my abyss.

  Isabelle sawed at my shoulders, braced and bucked, scaled me, opened herself, drove deep, rocked from side to side and made me rock. The watchers revived, the octopus recommenced its struggle.

  “Don’t leave me anymore,” I said.

  Night, belly of silence.

  Isabelle rose slowly, slowly, her inward lips closing on my hip. Isabelle toppled.

  I felt for her hand, I laid it on my back, I moved it down to below my waist, I put it down by my anus.

  “Yes,” said Isabelle.

  I waited, I gathered myself.

  “This is new,” said Isabelle. Shy, it entered, Isabelle spoke:

  “My finger is warm, my finger is happy.”

  The anxious finger did not dare.

  We listened, we were ecstatic. The finger would always be importunate inside the greedy sheath. I contracted, to encourage it, I contracted, to imprison it.

  “Further, I want further,” whimpered Isabelle, her mouth squashed against my neck.

  She pressed into the impossible. Again the knuckle, again the prison around it. We were at the mercy of the poor, diminutive finger.

  The weight on my back meant that the finger was not giving up. The furious finger stabbed and stabbed. A maddened eel was dancing with death against my insides. My eyes were listening, my ears seeing: Isabelle was infecting me with her brutality. Let the finger right through the town, let it rupture the abattoirs. The burning was hurting me, our limitation hurt even more. But the dogged finger awakened my flesh; but the blows made me keener. My intoxication was layered in thick brushstrokes, in a warbling of spices, I opened myself up to the hips.