13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [37]
Garance shrugs. “Boys are dull. Are you free tomorrow night? I would rather take you. Your husband won’t be jealous, will he?”
“He is not much for operas, and yes, I am free tomorrow night. I would be delighted to escort you, young lady.”
Louise is happy that the girl has asked her, and has to some extent expected this. She most certainly would not have booked another engagement for that evening. She instructs Garance to wear the most beautiful dress she has: an evening at the opera is a formal affair.
The girl is opening her mouth to say something when the two of them hear an odd sound, like a distant crash. They follow this sound to the window and open it. They can see across the back courtyard into the kitchen window of the apartment directly on the other side. A plate is in sharp white shards on the floor, and a man and a woman stand over it, facing each other, their bodies tense as if ready to bolt from the room or leap at each other’s throats. They are unaware that they are being watched. Louise can hear the man’s voice, muffled through his shut window, ask the woman, “What did you have to do that for? My mother’s china!”
“I will break another if you say it again. Say it. Go on and accuse me again.” The woman’s voice is strident, more audible than the man’s. Louise watches as she picks up another plate from the drying rack and brandishes it. Both spectators are transfixed.
“Go ahead and smash everything in the house,” the man hisses, “but I will get an answer somehow. I will know what it is that you do with Simon. I already know. Look at your face. Your mouth is so ugly when you lie.”
At these words, the wife’s face winces as if she has bitten into a lemon, and her hand comes down fiercely, letting go of the plate. The sound of it shattering travels perfectly to Louise and Garance crouching at the window, as if they are in the room with the couple. The pieces of crockery glide apart smoothly across the clean kitchen tile, as if on ice. There is something beautiful about the vividness of the impact and the swift spread of the wreckage at their feet. The woman screams wordlessly at this display, and leaves the room. The man follows. They continue to shout across their apartment, but their words fade away and are lost.
A scene like at the theater: a man accusing a woman of adultery. The man, cold and furious; the woman, tearful and cornered. Louise’s throat seizes with anxiety at the funny coincidence of what she has just witnessed and the letter she has recently put in the mail. What if Henri found out such a thing about her? He would probably be silent and aggrieved. She would not be able to be defensive and throw things around in the kitchen. If she indulged in such violence, he might ask her if she had gone mad, if she needed to see a doctor.
She smiles wanly as she imagines her husband’s puzzled expression at such a moment. Surely, he would not explode in a fury of betrayed possession and ravish her immediately all over the living room, as she imagines the furious young man is doing to the cornered wife at this very moment. She lives in a measured and reasonable marriage to a measured and reasonable man.
If she made love with another, he would be stricken to the quick. He might ask her if she wanted a divorce. She would say no. They would have to work something between the two of them. It would be a quiet disaster.
Garance turns to Louise and does not see that her teacher is restless with worry. She is merely excited at the private thing she has just witnessed. She flutters the opera tickets in her hand like a fan and says, her smile glowing with mischievous youth, “Good Lord, this is wonderful. Every time I come over to your place lately, something exciting happens.”
The teacher smiles sadly to herself, her heated body awash with desire and shame, and shuts the window.
Un dispositif simple
THIS DAY (THURSDAY) XAVIER Langlais feels most peculiar: he has received yet another curious letter. It is even more explicit than the last. He is electrified