“You’re trembling,” he whispers, bowing his face like a supplicant. “Don’t move.” I close my eyes and he remains suspended, hovering over me, his breath caressing me, until, swollen to bursting, I shudder and sink.
Later, I prop myself on my elbow and tug at him, trying to pull him toward me, but he shakes his head. “No, there’s plenty of time for that. I wanted to give you a gift.” He removes the rest of my clothes, placing them neatly on the chair as he finishes, and the thought half forms in my mind that he might be fussy.
“Aren’t you going to undress?” I say.
“No. Not yet.”
This time he strokes me with his hands, laying me down again and spreading me open with nimble fingers, his eyes fixed on my cunt as if it were a marvelous flower.
“You are so beautiful,” he marvels. “You are fine and supple like a tree; I could touch you for hours, I could bury myself in the scent of you—No, don’t say anything….” He slips into French, he talks and talks, his voice low and sinuous, fucking me with words. Some, like encore, I can make out, but mostly they blur into a cajoling susurration that flows though me in waves so that, when he finally undresses, revealing the long, concave chest I had imagined, its filigree of black curls dipping down below his navel to swell again at the base of his penis, the rest feels like an afterthought.
CHAPTER twenty-seven
“W ell, look what the cat dragged in,” Jane says pleasantly when I slip home the next morning. As the kitchen fills with the smell of toast, she takes the tray from on top of the fridge and, humming to herself, loads it with jam and butter and our ubiquitous sticky jar of Santerran honey, along with two cups and saucers and cutlery. On the stove, the kettle starts to rattle.
“Coffee?” I ask.
“In a sec, this one’s for tea.”
Tea? Jane never drinks tea. The only person I can think of who drinks tea is—
“Oh, hi, honey, breakfast coming right up,” Jane sings out. I turn around. Marge, her hair all spiky from sleep, is standing in the doorway, a typical disapproving Marge look on her broad, pink face. “Hullo,” she growls.
“Hi, Marge,” I say. “What a surprise.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Jane twitters, encircling Marge’s waist and giving her a big smooch on the mouth. “She just showed up out of the blue!”
“And in the nick of time, by the looks of it,” Marge says. The thought strikes me, as it does every time I see her girlfriend, that Jane might as well be going out with a man. Not only is Marge utterly devoid of feminine charm, she possesses, in abundance, that uncanny ability guys have to take a woman’s admiration for granted. Not that Jane is any help: From the way she eyes her as she pours water into the teapot, you’d think Uma Thurman had just walked into the room.
“I brought some herbal tea,” Marge says, eyeing the box of Lipton with displeasure.
“Oh.” Jane looks crestfallen. “I’ll just boil up another kettle, won’t be a sec!”
“That’s all right, I’ll have a cup of that while I wait,” Marge says magnanimously. She lowers herself onto a chair and crosses one big hairy leg over another so that her Birkenstock sandal dangles in the air.
“Biscuit?” Jane chirps.
I’m going to throw up.
Marge slurps at her tea—table manners, like depilation, are a tool of class oppression—and looks around. “This place is every bit as much a tip as I remember,” she observes, her eyes wandering from the big crack in the wall to the makeshift shelves stacked with the chipped crockery that Lucy buys with abandon at the flea market in Canonica.
“If we’d known you were coming, we would have redecorated,” I say. Jane shoots me a warning look.
“Shame really, letting it fall apart,” Marge goes on. “Probably be worth a fortune if you tarted it up a bit. Sell it to some yuppie toffs….”
“Lucy’s looking into getting some work done,” Jane says.
“Huh, I can just imagine.”
“She has a couple rather good ideas,” Jane says defensively. “She and Yves have drawn up some plans and they look quite sensible.”
“Ah, yes, Odette’s new bumboy.” Marge helps herself to a cookie and shifts her gaze to me as she chews. “So, still swindling the poor?”
“If you mean am I still working for an investment bank, yes,” I say affably. Not even Marge can dampen my mood this morning. “I’m in emerging markets now,” I add.
Marge brightens up instantly. “Ah, yes—quite a windfall for you people, I should think, all the commies going bust at once.”
“Not all, we’re still waiting on Cuba and China.”
“Huh.” She takes another cookie. If I were her, I’d go easy on the carbs and sugars. “So, just how are you raping the third world these days?”
“Oh, you know,” I say, “buying up tractor factories and coal mines, firing all the workers, that sort of thing.”
“Really, Constance,” Jane says with a frown. “When did you get so cynical?”
“I was just at a conference on women’s health in the former Soviet Union,” Marge announces. “Really shocking stuff. D’you realize that infant mortality has actually risen under capitalism?” she asks in the rhetorical tone she always adopts when embarking on an ideological rant. Rhetorical because Marge couldn’t care less about the plight of post-Soviet babies, or Eritrean lesbians, or any of the other causes she has espoused in her unending quest to break the world record in conference attendance. What Marge cares about first and foremost is getting her opinion heard.
Still, I can’t entirely resist the bait. “I’m not sure what they’re doing in Russia really qualifies as capitalism,” I remark.
Marge snorts with derision but is prevented from skewering me to the wall by the appearance of Jim, who, if he’s surprised I didn’t come home last night, isn’t letting on. As he grins disarmingly at Marge, I feel a completely unanticipated stirring of remorse. Marge scowls. “Who’s this?”
“Constance’s boyfriend,” Jane says, grateful for the distraction. “He works at the bank with her.”
“Aren’t there rules about you people fraternizing outside the office?”
“This is Marge,” I say to Jim. “She thinks we’re raping the third world.”
Jim looks perplexed.
“Water’s boiling!” Jane cries desperately. “Shall we sit in the dining room? It’ll be more festive.”
“I thought we were having breakfast in bed,” Marge says with a leer, just in case anyone had missed that, on top of being an expert on everything, she’s also a demon lover. I’m about to follow them—into the next room, not into bed—when Jim holds me back. “Constance, we need to talk,” he says urgently.
“Look,” I say, “I’m sorry, I—” But I don’t get a chance to finish because just then there’s a bang on the door, followed by a booming voice I would know anywhere—“Hallo! Anybody home?”—which sets off a cavalcade on the stairs as Olga and Sophie, shrieking with joy, come tumbling down to jump into their father’s arms.
“What now?” Jim says.
“Vere is my vife?!” Jiri shouts, striding into the kitchen with his daughters hanging off him like grapes. Jane and Marge look dumbfounded.
“Hi, Jiri,” I say. “She’s in Zurich.” He shakes off Sophie and hugs me, mashing my face into his T-shirt. He smells like a bear but it’s another one of those things Jiri gets away with in the service of pure masculinity.
“What the fuck is she doing in Zurich?” he roars.
Marge, still soldered to her chair, shoots Jane a What the hell is he doing here? look, but Jane in turn is now being helplessly pressed to Jiri’s chest.
“Marge, you old dyke!” he bellows over Jane’s head.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Sophie yells. “Mommy went to get a treasure!”
He grabs Sophie again, releasing Jane— “You’re my treasure! Come here and give me kiss”—and Sophie, swooning with ecstasy, hoists herself up like a monkey and plants her lips on his stubbly c
hin.
“I need a shower!” Jiri roars. “Would you believe I drove all the way from Prague in one stretch?”
“How very manly of you,” Marge says.
“Just had a short nap on the ferry, then on to these fucking crazy Santerran roads! I almost ran over a cow: Stupid thing was sleeping in the middle of the road!”
“Oh, no, Daddy!” the girls scream with glee.
“That’s all right, I slowed down just in time. Who’s this?” Jiri says, indicating Jim, who is gazing at him with the naked admiration my brother-in-law always inspires in not-quite-so-manly Westerners. I introduce them.
“Ah, got your hands on Constance, eh?” he exclaims, thumping Jim on the back. “What’s your secret? She wouldn’t have me!” Once again I am reminded that it’s awfully hard not to like the guy, a feeling that has always been shared by Odette, who, attracted by the ruckus, now appears and comes skittering over. Jiri makes a big show of kissing her hand.
“Odette! Every year more beautiful!”
“Ah, stop it, teasing an old woman….”
“Old woman?! I’ve thrown younger women out of bed!”
Marge rolls her eyes. The last time she and Jiri were together, they spent the whole vacation taunting each other like two guys in a bar, much to the distress of Jane, who I don’t think was aware of the frat-boy element of Marge’s personality. As for Marge, she’s never quite been able to wrap her mind around the concept of a reactionary revolutionary.
“I didn’t know your cave was furnished,” she says. Jiri, who has dropped into the other chair, leans over and slaps her on the thigh.
“My good lesbian friend Marge, how goes the struggle against male oppression?”
“Coming soon to that backwater you call home: Guess where our next empowerment conference is taking place?”
“Ha! Very good! I’ll have to hook you up with the old trouts from the Central Committee for Ladies’ Affairs.”
“I’m in touch with a number of Czech women’s groups already, thanks,” Marge says.
“I wouldn’t bring up the muff-diving, though: You don’t want to get slapped in the head with a handbag.”
Marge settles herself more comfortably in her chair, under the desperate eye of Jane.
“I see you’re still operating under the delusion that the Czech Republic is the only country on earth with a gay population of zero?” she says.
“Absolutely not! Homosexuality has doubled under capitalism—it’s just that none of the girls seem to be interested.”
“Who can blame them, with strapping lads like you around?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” Jiri says with a grin, turning back to the girls, who are buzzing around him like mosquitoes. “Now, why did that silly mother of yours run off to Switzerland? Shall I go get her?”
“No!” Sophie and Olga wail in unison. “Stay here, Daddy!”
Jiri hoists his daughters onto his lap, which is when Electra makes her timid entrance, hesitating in the doorway. Jiri observes her with interest.
“And who is this young lady?”
“Oh, it’s Lucy’s daughter,” Odette says hastily, almost apologetically. “Don’t you remember her?”
“But of course! And what is your name?”
And just like that, out of the blue, and with neither of her parents in the room to record the occasion, Electra, loudly and clearly, says:
“Agnes.”
CHAPTER twenty-eight
“S he doesn’t like her name,” Sophie says.
“How do you know?” Odette asks.
“Because she told us.”
“But—she can’t talk,” Odette says, reasonably enough.
“She talks to us all the time, don’t you, Agnes?”
Electra doesn’t answer.
“Jesus,” Jim says.
“Could somebody,” Jiri says, “please explain to me what is going on?”
I turn back to him. “We weren’t exactly expecting you, you know.”
Jiri looks shocked. “You thought I was going to miss my good friend Ross’s memorial? What kind of a man do you take me for?”
“Daddy!” Sophie yells. “Wait right here! We have something to show you!” She races out of the room with Olga and Electra in tow.
“Well,” I say, once they’re out of earshot, “we were kind of under the impression that you and Isabelle had split up.”
“Why would I split up with the mother of my children?” Jiri asks with a look of genuine amazement.
“You see,” Odette says with satisfaction.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think you and Isabelle might be having some communication issues you need to sort out.”
“Female nonsense,” Jiri says genially, grabbing a handful of cookies off Marge’s plate. “What the fuck is she doing in Switzerland, anyway?”
“Jiri, vraiment!”
Jiri smiles disarmingly, revealing the gap from the tooth that was knocked out in an antigovernment demonstration in ’68. “I am truly sorry, Odette, I forgot myself.”
We explain, once more, about the bank account. I have to say that, with every retelling, the story sounds more preposterous.
“Ha! This is good! So my wife has run off to Zurich to see what is in this account, yes?”
“Daddy, Daddy!” The girls burst back in, Sophie clutching the box to her chest with an air of extreme and unbearable trepidation.
“And what do we have here?”
“Treasure!”
“Indeed,” Jiri says, peering with great seriousness at the doll inside. “Come here, you little ape!”
“It’s ours!” Sophie squeals. “Mommy gave it to us!”
Which is when we hear the explosion.
We all fly outside, where we find Lucy, Richard, and Philippe peering down over the edge of the terrace toward the fishing cabins, where the sound seems to have come from. Up on the square, the church bell is ringing in alarm. The only other times you hear it is on Sundays and for weddings, upon which occasion shots are also fired in the air.
“Ah mon Dieu!” cries Odette. “Terrorists!” Jim drapes his arm reassuringly around her shoulder. I glance over at Philippe. He makes a little sign at me and then looks back down, though you can’t see anything through the dense cover of the maquis. The girls are beside themselves with excitement, except for Electra, who you would never know had just reached a developmental milestone.
“Daddy, Daddy! Is it a bomb? Let’s go see!”
“Jesus,” says Jim. “Aren’t there people living down there?”
The skirl of a siren interrupts him: Borgolano’s one police car, which also doubles as an ambulance. We can see it careering down the road from where we’re standing.
“We’d better go down and see if we can help,” Jim says.
“God, of course,” Richard exclaims. “Philippe, got your car keys on you?”
“Attention!” Odette calls after them.
“Come on, we’ll follow them down,” says Jane, who has suddenly appeared at my side with Marge. “I’ll get the keys and meet you at the car.”
Marge, Lucy, and I pile into the little Renault, and within seconds we’re tearing down the road to the water. When we reach the bottom, Philippe’s car, doors gaping, is the only one in the parking area.
“A good sign,” Jane says. “They must’ve all been off somewhere. Can you remember how many of the cabins were rented out?”
“Only two,” I say. “I’m pretty sure the Germans left last week.”
We make our way down the path, a strange acrid smell intensifying as we come closer. Up ahead I can hear Jim’s voice.
“Jesus, what a mess! There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, though.”
Through a haze of dust, the first of Yolande’s rental properties comes into view—or half of it, anyway, the top floor having been reduced to rubble. “Fuck!” Jane shouts. I look over to where she’s standing, by the tree that shades the hut’s entrance. From one of its singed branche
s, the corpse of a dog sways dismally in the ashy air. Philippe, Jim, and Richard come running toward us.
“What the—Oh, Jesus!” Jim stands rooted to the spot where he stopped. “What is wrong with these people?”
I want to go over to Philippe but I don’t move. Jean-Michel and Pascal, Borgolano’s two gendarmes, come racing down the hill.
“Allez, dégagez! Everyone clear out!”
“It’s all right,” Jim says. “There was no one home, and there doesn’t seem to be a fire.”
“Dynamite,” Jiri says, sniffing the air.
“Allez, dégagez!” But except for ordering us to clear out, Jean Michel and Pascal seem unsure what to do next, until they spot the dog. A look passes between them. I consider mentioning the one I saw when I was jogging but think better of it. Everyone knows the gendarmes are useless in a crisis. I’ll just end up in the station—one room in the mairie, actually—for an hour, filling out statements in triplicate. My instinct is confirmed by the arrival of Yolande and the mayor, Yolande hysterical and the mayor looking troubled, especially when he sees the dog.
“Who is responsible for this? Charles, what is going on? Ah mon Dieu, my beautiful house …”
“You might ask if anyone was home,” Jane says dryly.
“I know no one was home,” Yolande snaps. “They all left yesterday. The new tenants are arriving tomorrow, and what am I to tell them? Charles, I demand that you find the culprits! Ah mon Dieu, I don’t even have insurance!”
“Calm yourself, Yolande,” says the mayor. I catch the gendarmes smirking at each other.
“Allez,” the mayor snaps, “you might as well call off the fire truck.”
Lucy is staring at the dog. “It’s a warning,” she says.
“Allons, Madame Townsley, these are schoolgirl imaginings.”
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