13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [54]
“You live here,” I sputter.
“I do. Would you like some tea? I was just making myself some breakfast. I’m delighted to see you.”
That confounded woman! Was she expecting me?
Sitting across the kitchen table from her, across steaming cups of tea, I cannot keep my eyes off her. She has not bothered to put on a robe to cover herself. She must see me looking. I am no master of slyness.
“Vous avez quelque chose à me montrer, Trevor?”36 she says, her voice soft and slightly raspy, as one who had just gotten up. As my answer, I take the handkerchief out of my breast pocket and lay it gently on the table before her, like so:
“Ah,” she says.
“Well? Do you know when it is from? From which war?”
“None of us have ever figured that out.”
“None of you? Not even the historian? How many of us have you collected?”
“Oh, not that many, Trevor. Don’t be jealous.”
She seems genuinely worried that I’m angry now, and I am flustered. That is not after all what I want her to think of me. I want to reassure her, but the only words that suddenly pop into my whirring brain are I love you. Foolishness! Complete foolishness. I do not speak.
“How are the fevers?” she asks.
“They do not abate.”
She lays her cool white hand on my cheek. It feels quite soothing there. “Are they very bad? That would be terrible. Are you not enjoying your research?”
“Oh, I am. It’s been a fine journey, I assure you.”
“I did want you to enjoy it, Trevor.”
I take her hand and cup it in my own; I kiss the underside of her delicate wrist, just at the juncture with the palm, such a sensitive and ticklish place. She titters, and I wonder, Would her hands fit into Louise Brunet’s mesh gloves? What a dreadful thought, to slip such lovely, live flesh into the garments of ghosts! But have I not been slipped thus inside the record?
“When you drop a handkerchief in front of somebody,” I ask, “is that not a gesture of courtship?”
“Yes, but usually it is the woman who does it.”
“Well, you did, didn’t you? You dropped it first.”
She comes around the table and slides herself onto my lap. She wiggles as she settles there. My nose nearly touches her neck; I can smell the fragrant heat of her hair. She is a terrible, mischievous woman who has played me an enormous trick, and I am quite sure I am in love with her. I encircle her waist with my arms and I can feel through the thin cloth what my eyes suspected: she wears nothing under the nightgown. The fit of our bodies is perfect; it is as if it was meant to be.
“I suspect we are not going in to work today,” I whisper into her ear.
For a reply, she kisses me on the mouth and all is forgotten and all is remembered and it is as if I have no volition as I yield to this desire—and I have never been so happy. Oh, darling, tell me you will look at me like this again tomorrow! Tell me you will remember these kisses, that they really happened. Don’t wave me off, those fathomless gold-flecked eyes closed to me, and say, “Non, non—pas encore…” Encore, s’il te plaît, encore!
Oh, Sir, I forget myself! I apologize. Findings:
a photograph.
an empty envelope.
coins.
I hope life is treating you as well as it is treating me. I suspect so.
Sincerely,
Trevor Stratton
De garde dans les tranchées
IN THE DOCUMENTATION, ANOTHER soldier stands his weary guard:
His face looks familiar to you. You have seen him before. You cannot be certain where because faces have been recurring around you in a strange way lately. For all you know, you might have gazed into