she refilled their glasses, Simone’s hand brushed against Jacques.
“You’re warm.”
“I have a slight fever—it’s nothing. Probably from…” she glanced downwards, uncertain if she should say the word “nursing,” wavered back and forth, will it make her seem bovine, slovenly? Not to say it would be prudish, yes, she determined to finish her sentence, to say the word, and blurted it out rather too harshly: “nursing.”
“Ah, the sacrifices the race of noble mothers makes—” Albert said.
Because she wanted to drive off the notion of her being exalted by maternity, she said, “I quite enjoy a slight fever…”
Jacques’ eyes fixed on her, like those of a raptor on its prey.
She’d been about to say “A fever is like wine, too much leaves you thick and dull, but the right amount…” but now to say that would make her foolish.
His eyes accused her of being a woman who needed stimulation, whether from wine or fever or the admiration of men.
The next gesture he made took her aback, laying his flat palm upon her forehead, leaving it there. Under the influence of drink—Jacques was on his third glass of mirto—some men reveal a hidden streak of cruelty. Jacques revealed a well-concealed vein of tenderness.
He was flushed, in all the myriad senses of that word: warm, lavish, abundant. He held forth. She and Albert basked in his talk: “In Madagascar, it was said that everyone had a spirit animal. I was quite convinced mine was the aye-aye. Have you heard of the aye-aye? No? It has enormous eyes and five fingers. A species of lemur. Difficult to actually catch sight of, it hides in the forest and plays tricks on us humans. But when I confided my belief to one of the village elders, he shook his head very solemnly from side to side and said, ‘Angonoka.’” Jacques imitated the old man’s hunched shoulders, his penetrating glare, the gravely certainty with which he spoke.
“Angon—,” Simone repeated.
“Angonoka.”
“Angonoka.”
“There. We’ll have you speaking Malagasy in no time. The Europeans call it the ploughshares tortoise,” Jacques laughed. “One of the ugliest animals you have ever seen—a strange protuberance of its shell under its head—most pronounced in the male of the species, resembling a plough. If my spirit animal couldn’t have been the aye-aye, couldn’t it have been the native bats with a face like a fox? No, alas, within me is a lumbering tortoise. Its mating is triggered by fighting with male rivals. The two of them go at it, locking their ploughs together, stumbling back and forth. Have you ever seen a boxing match?”
“No,” Simone said. “Bullfights, I have seen bullfights.”
“Sometimes one of the fighters knocks the other out quite decisively. But sometimes the match goes on and on, two men, punch drunk, leaning into each other, almost as if they were engaging in a strange dance, every now and again one or the other landing a blow. Resembling one of those longstanding marriages where the couple are joined together by hatred and custom, staggering around together. That is how the ploughshare tortoises fight—the male of the species.”
“And the female of the species?” Simone asked.
Jacques gave a shrug.
Albert yawned. “We should be getting to bed,” although none of the three made a move to rise.
Another half an hour passed, Albert yawned again. “We should be getting to bed. We must be up early, our hike to the lighthouse.”
“Sleep in tomorrow,” Simone coaxed. “You can see the lighthouse some other day.”
“No, alas,” Albert said. “There’s only tomorrow. On Thursday, we leave for Carcassonne.”
“You are leaving?”
“You see,” Albert said to Jacques, “she adores us, she’s devastated that we are going!” Simone had begun to cry.
“Didn’t Albert tell you? We are on a pilgrimage.”
“It’s just that it’s so dull here. I’m so lonely. I’ll be left alone with that dreadful colonel and those squabbling families.”
Albert offered her his handkerchief. “This corner is clean.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You must think I’m—weeping like this.” She pushed her fingers against the underside of her eye sockets and forced a rueful laugh. She shook her head, like a dog shaking off water: “A pilgrimage? What kind of a pilgrimage?”
“Perhaps we could come back.” Albert cocked a questioning eyebrow at Jacques.
“Perhaps.” Jacques sounded doubtful.
“Oh, no, no. It’s your holiday. I don’t want to—. The doctor says I should wait until Marcel is at least six months to take him to Istanbul. There are fevers there. And Luc—my husband—can’t come here, because of his duties. For a while—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be airing my thoughts—it seemed that he was going to be able to come for a visit. I was looking forward…but then some calamity arose—something to do with a shipment of railroad ties, if you can imagine. Oh, I’m so sick of myself! I sit around and brood all day. Like a hen. I cluck and fuss. Tell me about your pilgrimage. What kind of a pilgrimage would the two of you be going on?”
Albert dropped to his knees, took a few steps on them, his hands pressed together in prayer. “I didn’t tell you, I had a religious conversion, I’m going to become a Carthusian monk.”
“Oh, Albert, you couldn’t keep silent for an hour, never mind a lifetime.” Simone ruffled Albert’s wild hair.
“I like that. Perhaps I’ll become a dog instead. Your faithful companion,” and from his knees he went onto all fours, hung his tongue out, wagged his rear.
“We are going to Carcassonne to meet a poet, Joë Bousquet. A literary pilgrimage. I have been corresponding with him—he has quite a striking voice. He was wounded in the war, paralyzed, and is now unable to leave his family home.”
“Come with us.” Albert had gone from all fours to sitting on the floor, with his legs drawn up in front of him.
“You forget I am a married woman. I can hardly go traipsing off across the countryside with the two of you.”
“Tell your mother that we’ve become monks. We’ll make a great show of our piety tomorrow.”
“And then there’s my child.”
“Oh, he’s so small. I’ll just tuck him under my arm—”
“And what would my husband say?”
“I won’t tell. Jacques, will you tell?”
“Your husband should have known better than to leave you alone.”
