13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [33]
“Madam,” he says, reaching fumblingly into his pocket. “Help me, please?” He takes out a pad and pen and holds them out to her. “Help me?”
“Help you with what?”
“To write, in French. I cannot write in French.”
This is such a peculiar request that she is intrigued. She loops the handle of her bag around her forearm to leave both hands free, and asks, “To write what?”
The boy blushes. He can hardly get the words out of himself. “I love a girl. A French girl. I must tell her. I have to…” He offers her the pen. “Help me?”
As interesting as this development is, she is not about to let this boy into her apartment, so she sits down on the landing with the pad on her lap. The boy sits next to her at a respectful distance, though she can still smell the bleach and sweat on him. His foot is fidgeting and he keeps both hands together and pressed tightly between his knees. “So you love this girl very much?” Louise asks.
“Yes, very much, Madam.”
“Well, ah, what does she look like?”
“She has blue eyes. Brown hair. She is little. She smells like…” The boy cannot find a word; he gestures a bloom with his hand.
“Like flowers,” Louise fills in.
“Yes, like that. She has skin soft and white, and a voice like…”
“Like music.”
“Yes, like that. Her eyes, they are filled with secrets. I want to know them. I am nothing much, but I love her more than anything. Help me?”
His gaze is so wide and earnest that it pinches something soft in her. She is fairly certain that his romantic aspirations are doomed. Nevertheless she has settled on doing this favor for him. “I’ll write a letter, all right? And then you can copy it however you like,” she says.
“Yes, thank you so much, Madam. You are so kind.”
For a few minutes, the two of them sit on the stairs while Louise’s hand races across the page in a slanting sloppy handwriting that any teacher would disapprove of. When she is done, she signs her maiden name on the bottom, with a flourish. She is not sure why she does this, but it makes her feel good. She hands the boy the pen, then presents the notepad over her arm, as a waiter would display a menu in a posh restaurant. The boy clearly does not recognize the gesture, as he doesn’t smile when he takes the pad from her. He offers her his hand to help her stand up and she takes it. The boy hugs the pad to his chest and says, “Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam.”
He darts quickly forward, plants a small kiss on her startled cheek, and barrels down the stairs without saying anything further. She watches him go, then shuts her door softly behind her as she enters her apartment, as if she doesn’t want to disturb the remnants of the strange moment she just had.
AS LOUISE COOKS, THE words from the letter she has written today swim in her head. She cannot get them out. They swirl in spirals, fluttering like leaves in the wind, and their rustling will not leave her alone. When the chicken is broiling in the oven, she sits at the dining table with the small pad of mulch paper on which she writes her grocery list. She is thinking of something too stupid to say aloud, or even to write down. What a girl she is! She feels no older than Garance.
She smiles as she thinks of the words of the letter she wrote for the foreign boy in the stairs:
My dear beloved Muse,
Each day I look at you, and each day I see the incarnation of my most incensed dreams in the body of an angel—a diabolical angel indeed, that hides the secrets of a closed heart behind her limpid eyes. If only I could dive into the azure of your eyes, I would never come out again. I would be the happiest drowned man on earth!
My beloved, your perfume enthralls me. Let your fatal flower bloom and envelop me with its scent, and I would never again need to smell another odor. Speak to me, tell me your secrets, your desires, your joys, and I would never again need to hear another music.
Your skin white and soft like daisy petals haunts my maddest dreams, my happiest fantasies. I need you, my angel. I am nothing much, but I love you more than my blood—impure and incinerated with