13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [47]
The check comes. Henri picks it up.
“Ah, no,” Xavier says, “let me get that. Let me thank you for introducing us to this lovely eating place.”
“I insist. Let me treat you.”
“Absolutely not,” Xavier maintains, opening his wallet and pulling out a few bills. “Really, dear Sir, it will be my privilege. Tonight I seem to have a little bit of stray cash yearning to be released.”
As he says this, he is looking straight at Louise with a slightly crooked half smile on his face. With what slow relish he pronounces the words “stray cash”—what a terrible man.
Oh—he knows! Of course he knows that she is the naughty letter writer and he displays this knowledge by sliding her pun back at her across the table like so much paper money. That smirk of his: so lewd and so attractive. Louise is going to faint. She is going to cry. She is going to palm her breasts. She is going to reach blindly under the table for his stirring cock.
No, she will do nothing, of course. She is civilized. She will merely let her body hum with frustrated sex. He is playing with her, the bastard, and she flutters with abject happiness at this—at this drawing out of illicit desire while maintaining perfect deniability. She cannot stand this! It is too much. It is just enough. She is thrilled.
Henri shrugs as he gives up the check, taking his hands off the table. “As you wish, then. Thank you very much for this splendid dinner.”
Xavier counts his money into the small silver tray, and asserts, “Certainly it is my pleasure, dear Sir.”
11 Novembre
ON THE ELEVENTH HOUR of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the year 1918, the fires cease.
ON THE ELEVENTH DAY of the eleventh month in the year 1923, the flame of the unknown soldier is lit at his tomb under the Arc de Triomphe. This light will always burn. On the day you read this record, the flame burns. On the morning of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the year of our story, 1928 (Sunday), this flame burns. As Louise wakes up next to her still-sleeping husband, this flame burns. As she looks him over with great tenderness, this flame burns. As she goes about her business on this day of remembrance, the tenth anniversary of the Armistice, this flame burns.
LOUISE IS BESIDE HERSELF. She has no idea what will happen next. Clearly something is going to happen. This elates her and makes her angry at the same time. She watches her husband to see if he suspects. It seems that all is well with him as he sips his morning tea and reads the newspaper.
She is quite sure she cannot stand this. She will go mad.
As she sits there with her cooling tea in front of her, she hears music. It is a slight and wistful melody coming from the street. Louise gets up and opens the window.
“Look!” she says to her husband. “An organ-grinder.”
He grunts an acknowledgment that she has spoken, but doesn’t seem interested by this news. No matter. Louise looks down into the street at the fellow pushing his wheeled musical contraption. He is dressed in faded and patched clothing, and wears a cap tilted at a jaunty angle, along with fingerless gloves. He looks straight ahead as he turns the crank on his machine, rolling it down the street.
His song nudges at Louise’s ear. Something about it makes sweat break onto the skin of her back. “I think I shall give him a few coins,” she says.
“Very well,” answers Henri.
She runs to fetch some spare change out of her coat pocket, then runs back to the open window. She flings her money into the street. It falls in a graceful, glimmering arc in the morning light and makes a small ringing shower when it hits the hard ground. The music stops as the musician bends over to pick up the coins. He puts them in a cup hanging off the side of his organ and looks up at Louise.
“Pretty melody!” she shouts down at him.
He touches his fingers to the brim of his cap and gives a small bow. He continues his progress down the street, resuming his song. As he turns the corner, Louise hears the resounding evidence of another donation being made