The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [80]
I chose my path, at the opportune moment slunk underground, glided along the waterways. I would have preferred not to leave, to stay the night with her, but I knew it was impossible. My staying would have destroyed everything, shattered the cage, she would have been gone in a flash. I had been ingenious enough to find a way to trap her, of this I was proud. I had a certain power over her now, which was not entirely satisfying, but it was satisfying enough. Much better than not seeing her at all, which I couldn’t have borne.
twenty-nine
Early on in Madame Bovary, there’s a passage devoted to Charles and Emma’s love in the early months of their marriage. Here we have a vision of how the story could have ended, this young love deepening, if Emma had been able to continue to love Charles, instead of growing bored, yearning for something else.
From a double, Isolde soon found that she had a triple life. She wouldn’t think of asking Hernán to her cocktail parties, couldn’t imagine him fitting into that world. When she was thinking in this vein, she felt repugnance. He wasn’t good enough for her. He wasn’t sophisticated. Sometimes even the smell of him bothered her.
On the other hand, she began to feel a sweetness to her days, a slight ripple of happiness at the thought of coming home from the beauty parlor, knowing she could knock on his door and find him there. She felt comforted knowing that she could call him, at any moment in the course of her day, and he would always pick up the phone. Sometimes she’d call just for that reason, checking to see if he was still there. He seemed to understand that that was why she’d called and it didn’t bother him. No matter what she did, he seemed touched and amused by her.
The sweetness of repetition—she’d call as she was leaving the beauty parlor to let him know when she’d be home. He’d have something nice waiting for her, a snack or a cocktail. She’d tell him about her day. If she was in a talkative mood, she could go into as much detail as she wanted, and Isolde could go into exhaustive detail, or, if she didn’t feel like talking, she simply wouldn’t. The music would be on.
She had never been near someone, not really. It was completely strange to her. She marveled at how he so simply included her. The loneliness that she had become familiar with—it had been perhaps the one constant in her life—was gone. The longing that went hand in hand with the loneliness was also gone. She felt that although she had been surrounded by people—she had always, somewhat frantically, been surrounded by people—she had been alone her whole life until now.
One day, he showed her one of his other rental properties, a larger place. “Too good for me,” Hernán said. “I’d never live here on my own.” She looked around. It wasn’t stunning, but it was nice enough. “But the two of us could live here,” he said. “You wouldn’t have to work.” For a moment, her repulsion rose up again. Move in with him? What was he thinking? But in the weeks that followed, she found herself decorating the new place in her mind.
thirty
I have to finish this up. I need you to come,” Leonarda said.
“Sure, why not?” I answered.
“Just one last time. Then we’ll be done with him.”
Dinner with the Beast, take two. Otherwise known as the final act of the Master Plan. He had cooked us an elaborate meal. I watched the flashing of the forks and knives. The living creature is always soft and vulnerable somewhere. I looked at his bald head, her short neck. Someone here will be prey. Where were we each the most fleshy? I turned and eyed her quickly, in case she was up to something. But she wasn’t paying attention. Her nose was crinkled up.
I noticed it too, a smell, almost like meat rotting in the early stages, beginning to turn. It was faint. I didn’t say anything. But then Leonarda