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The Photos The Lesbian Curse Sentimental Prayer Remnants of Shadow and Light Excerpt |
  une From Troyes she took the route that connected the city to Sens in the west, though she puttered but half that distance in the ancient green Renault before turning south to cross the Vanne and acquire the semi-paved roadpath that took her past the vineyards and small estates, through sleepy Aix with its morning aroma of freshly baked baguettes and spicy saucisses still lingering in the afternoon sun and, after a brief stop at the poste for any letters for Pierrette Gossard, finally along the tranquil Othe to the cottage on the small holding bequeathed to her by her parents some years back, a squarish plot a hundred meters on a side, with the corners aligned to the points of the compass. The days of this late summer stretched more than usual. She had received no invitations to assist in museum displays or restorations or to revisit the Lescaux cave paintings, and to occupy her professionally she had only her writing, the brief, illustrated topical booklets for children that, she rather imagined on spring days, when hope was immanent in all things, might nurture the next generation of archeologists and physical anthropologists. There was some small demand for her work--readily available in the glittery tourist alcoves that litter the arid, sterile museums of France and western Switzerland--and Pierrette was approaching deadlines on half a dozen more, among them a primer on the ancient uses of amphorae and directions for children on how to throw their own in clay, and a coloring book of antiquities. But this interminable Friday in August had wearied her, and so she trudged through the kitchen into the sunlit front room, slowing step by step as she tossed the survey from the Societe Planetaire and the subscription renewal for L'Astronomie onto the floral stuffed chair left to her by a namesake aunt, and stopping when she reached the brass pole lamp by her desk in the southeast corner of the room, placed there that she might write with the sun warming her back through the small bay windows in the late afternoon. The ampoule de fete would not fit in the socket with the lampshade on, so she removed the shade and the old bulb, screwed in the new, and turned the knob. Ruby light lent a strawberry tint to the summer tan of her face and arms and altered the pale blue of her chemise to lavender, but before the filament reached a festive flickering temperature it popped, faded, and died. Pierrette muttered several of those words she had heard on archeological digs.The bulb had cost almost eighty francs. She retrieved the container and checked for warranties. A soft strawberry glow in the room made her look up. She said, ''Merde!'' She hissed a few other archeological words and held the box as if prepared to hurl it. The woman with the strawberry aura neither flinched nor spoke. ''Quelle apparition--? Qui etes-vous . . . who-what are you?'' Not an aura. Her skin glowed like June strawberries in the patch behind the cottage, evenly, as if she tanned, naked as she was now, under Arcturus. Ruby-red hair shimmered like decanting claret over her shoulders, framing an oval face dominated by eyes that were rubies, multifaceted drops of fire fit for a maharajah. The rich color matched the nails on her fingers and toes, her eyebrows, and her pubic thatch. ''Ou suis-je?'' asked the woman, in Berlitz French. ''You don't know where you are?'' Pierrette lowered the container. It fell from her hand onto the old brown rug, tumbling like a die into the trapezoid faded by sunlight. ''Etes . . . etes-vous anglaise? English? You are lost?'' ''No, not . . . English--'' ''Americaine, then, hm?'' ''No. Please be not afraid. I mean you no harm.'' Pierrette collapsed onto the stuffed chair, crumpling her mail. Where had the woman come from? How had she entered the cottage so soundlessly? Intuition came a flash of pain, a berzerk spark dancing behind her eyes, rekindling beliefs long abandoned, and she slipped from the chair to her knees on the rug, head lowered in reverence, ochre hair casting her cheeks in pious shadow. ''Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners--'' ''No.'' The negation startled Pierrette. She raised her eyes a little, enough to see the woman's knees. ''Lourdes,'' she whispered. ''Fatima.'' 'Aye, such explanations have proved satisfactory in the past.'' The woman spoke English with a curious inflection, a lilt Pierrette thought familiar but was unable to identify. Not American . . . ''But no, 'twas another, then, and not meself. I am new here, just.'' ''Who are you?'' ''This is me here, observing you. D'you wish me to leave, then?'' Delicately Pierrette uncoiled, arms pushing her up into the chair, weak. Sunlight washed over her left side, overpowering the woman's spectral glow there, returning the blue of her denims, the robin's-egg of her chemise, the old gold of her hair. The rest of her remained tinged, affected. She felt as if her right side should feel even warmer. Strange that it did not. Pierrette's own English came clumsily, a scarcely used tool from a dusty shelf in her mind, with an accent that would have buckled the knees of an ardent American suitor.
''Who are you? What is your name?''
The woman drifted a turn around the front room, pausing here and there, rubies intent. At a taboret of varnished maple, to caress the chunky clay statuette of a primitive Venus in the Mesopotamian style, although this was a replica from Pisa, so stamped on the bottom of the base, with a little yellow sticker that read L23.000. By a wrought-iron etagere, to examine the contents of each of the three tiers. Archeological bric-a-brac, innocuous fragments pilfered from digs--a potsherd, a bronze spearhead, a fragment of something woven, now hermetically laminated, a handful of marbles of fired clay in an ashtray of polished green alabaster. Before a black-and-white photograph in an inexpensive charcoal frame, hanging on the wall opposite the window, of Pierrette standing beside an older man with a professorial salt-and-pepper beard, garbed in khaki, and two others, local diggers, with broken nails and half-healed scratches on their forearms, the Pyramid of Qufu in the background, the past haunting their present. Beside an heirloom chiffoniere, its lustreless wood shelves stocked with souvenirs and mementoes of her life and work in no particular chronology or arrangement, as if the owner clearly never intended to display them for anyone else.
The woman has no shame, thought Pierrette, snooping in my closet to see what I wear.
A pink index finger stroked a pewter she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. ''Aye, a penchant for identification you have. Very well, then. I shall submit. Name me.''
She was, thought Pierrette, the color of a sucette, the sweet spicy taste at once remote and familiar.
''Canelle, hm?''
The woman laughed. ''Cinnamon, is it? And not Celeste, if you believe me a miracle descended from the sky? I remind you of pastry, then?''
"I was thinking of a child's lollipop . . . from my father's hand, long ago. Please, be very careful with that.''
''It is important?''
It was a bisque drinking cup, a face carved into it, thick lips and Sumerian ringlets, passed down to her from her grandfather, who had accompanied Kurtwood into Nineveh during the interlude between wars. Something had happened between the first and second firings of the clay--an invasion, a plague, a tax collector, the birth of the firstborn--and somehow the unfinished artifact had survived four millennia of nomadic hordes, invasions, religious uprisings, looters, and the odd archeologist. She kept it on a corner shelf, alone, in a space no one else was meant to see, protected under a crystal bell jar whose curved surface now cast warped cerise reflections.
''I do not know. From a universal perspective I suppose not, hm? But to me . . . ''
Delicately Canelle replaced the cup and turned around. ''To you, then. But why?''
Pierrette's hands fluttered. ''Sais pas . . . it is difficult to explain.''
''But it is this which I wish to know.'' Her lilt was fading, her speech seeking its own level of competence--now she might have been educated in western New York.
''To observe me, you said.'' Pierrette got up to reposition the Mesopotamian Venus so that the bulbous breasts faced the window once more. Although this brought her within arm's reach of Canelle, she felt no warmth radiating from her. The strawberry woman might have been a holographic projection . . . but she seemed palpable, substantial. A dead body, arisen? Perhaps from the family plot in the cemetery at Saint-Remy? If she were possible, anything was.
''Pourquoi?''
Am I so interesting?
Canelle withdrew in the direction of the door. ''To study you studying yourself.''
''You are an anthropologist?''
''If you wish.''
''I think you may observe me without my permission. Without my awareness of you, ne c'est pas?'' Clarity set in. Pierrette had spent the sixteen years of her adult life in an attempt to decipher the inexplicable, the past in terms that the present might comprehend. In the wake of Canelle's declaration of harmlessness her self-assurance began to re-emerge, and with it her capacity for analysis. But she was at home, and she had a guest--the first in years, and she was showing herself a poor host. ''Would you care for something to drink, hm? Water, perhaps, from the well, or Evian?''
''What is the difference?''
Pierrette went into the kitchen, Canelle following. ''Water here tastes slightly of sulfur.''
''Taste?''
''You cannot taste, or smell? I cannot explain.''
''Sensory perceptions filtered through your tongue, your nose. Yes, I understand your physiology. That is not why I am here.''
Pierrette filled a glass and handed it to Canelle. In passing, their fingertips touched. Anticipating a static spark, Pierrette steeled herself, but there was only the feel of something alien, like a finger with the circulation temporarily cut off. Canelle lifted the glass to her mouth, drained half of it, and returned it to Pierrette.
''Merci . . . thank you.''
''I do not think you were thirsty, hm?''
''You wish to be a proper host, even to an intruder. If I may presume upon your hospitality, I wish to be a proper guest.''
''Why did you choose me?''
''This door leads to your carport, ne c'est pas?'' Canelle pulled it open. Her speech had altered once more, to include tags in adequate French, as if she were seeking to reassure through communication. ''And to your yard.''
''You wish to go outside? Perhaps, wait until it is dark. A car may pass, hm?''
''Ah, clothing.'' In a starwink garb similar to Pierrette's appeared on Canelle, including a ratty pair of blue Adidas with white piping for her unsocked feet and a black skunji to bind back her hair. Her reds remained unaltered. ''Je m'excuse. I have embarrassed you.''
''No . . . ''
''Perhaps you would feel more comfortable if I translated as a man.''
The offer took Pierrette unawares. To ask an acquaintance to change genders after the initial encounter seemed . . . gauche. To say nothing of unprecedented. ''Ah . . . no. That is . . . no, you are . . . I am comfortable with you as a woman.''
Canelle stepped out into the carport, Pierrette following. ''And now I have disconcerted you. This is one reason why we observe. I have no wish whatsoever to offend you in any way. To do so could skew the observations.''
''You can . . . translate, you said? . . . as a man?''
''I presumed you would feel less threatened, were I a woman. But I may translate as anything you wish, anything . . . a tyrannosaur, although I suspect you might find it difficult to present me to your friends.''
'' . . . I have no . . . ''
Canelle rounded the corner of the cottage and toed a raised bed. ''These are flowers.''
Pierrette's mind scrambled for the English word. ''Marigolds. Yes . . . I love flowers.''
''And do they love you?'' She dropped a knee to the brick border and ran a fingertip over the stiff orange petals.
''I-I do not know. No, I suppose not. Or perhaps . . . I give them a place to stay, and water them, and they bloom for me.''
Canelle rose, eyes toward the road and the river beyond. A surrounding low hedgerow, broken only by the driveway entrance, afforded the cottage a measure of privacy. Five trees shaded the unkempt clumps of old field grass in the yard. A triad of birch in the western corner, white javelins in the bull's-eye of a tulip bed. A medieval oak in the southern, and a cluster of three cherry trees between the carport and the birch, their fruit already gathered for the year, limbs now occupied by small birds of incessant twittering. Between the field grass grew clover and bronze groundcover and wild plants that produced creamy white blossoms. A yard of burgeoning independence, thought Pierrette, who cared for it when she had the time . . . but she'd had more time of late, and had not increased her attention. Canelle's sweeping gaze measured her regret, her shame.
''I did not choose you,'' said Canelle. ''Had you selected another color, you would now be alone.''
''Solitaire, oui . . . mais je ne savais pas qu'il-y-avait quelqu'une dans l'ampoule . . . I did not know.''
''I think perhaps I am most fortunate.'' Canelle made for the oak, rubies intent on something affixed to the massive trunk. ''Another might have chosen that bulb.''
''C'est incroyable.''
''And yet you are not afraid of me.''
''Closer to the spirits of the land, we are more accustomed to miracles here, hm?''
''There are spirits in the land?''
''Oh, yes! Spirits . . . memories.''
The sun had sunk to just above the treeline on the other side of the Othe, the gnomons of their bodies projecting shadows back toward the cottage to announce the late hour. Pierrette expected Canelle's to be pink, but it was charcoal, like her own. Even the penumbra was gray, neutral.
What are you?
''Memories?''
They reached the oak. The object that had drawn Canelle was a weathered board that had been set into a knee-high niche in the trunk and nailed in place. Other keloid scars in the bark suggested there had once been a ladder of such boards, leading up into the tree.
''C'est la chaumiere ou j'ai grandi,'' said Pierrette. ''I grew up here . . . in the summers, and several springs. Many memories.'' Securing a handhold on a keloid of bark, she put her right foot on the remaining rung and tried to pull herself up. The board snapped, and she spilled onto the groundcover, the impact jarring breath from her. Baleful green eyes transfixed Canelle. ''You might have caught me!'' She extended a hand. ''Help me up.''
''It is prohibited.''
After an exasperated pause Pierrette rolled over and pushed herself to her feet. ''I did not see the 'defense d'aider' sign. How could you not . . . ? I would have tried to catch you.''
''Events under observation must proceed as they will. I may not interfere, without skewing the observation. And you would have fallen, had I not been here.''
Pierrette was still aggrieved. ''I would not have tested the wood, had you not been here, hm? Why should courtesy fall victim to causality, hm?''
A car horn stuttered a greeting. Above the top of the hedgerow passed the cab of a blue Citroen, an arm extended, waving. Then the vehicle slowed . . . and sped up again, bearing south. Belatedly Pierrette returned the gesture as the growl of the engine dopplered out.
''Who was that?'' inquired Canelle.
''Michel is . . . an old acquaintance.''
''You are distressed.''
'' . . . It is of no importance.'' She rubbed the back of her left thigh, where the soreness would metamorphose into a morning bruise, then picked up and decapitated an acorn, tossing the fragments aside. Finally she tchahed. ''Let him think what he thinks. J'ai faim. Et vous?''
''I do not require food.''
''Or drink.'' Pierrette headed back to the cottage. ''Yet you can perform the . . . go through the motions.''
''I do not wish to attract undue attention.''
Pierrette barked a laugh. ''Vous etes une dame rouge.''
''The color is . . . inherent. I do not yet know how to alter it. I am . . . young.''
A throaty chuckle issued from Pierrette as she opened the front door and turned to the kitchen, switching on lights here and there. ''A scarlet tyrannosaur. Please, sit there, and you may observe me eating . . . bread, and . . . let me see.'' She rummaged through the shelves of the small cooler. ''Some cheese, the remains of yesterday's salad, a glass of wine.'' She served herself and sat down, the table a barricade of wood between her and Canelle, and spoke between bites. ''Alors . . . you are from outer space, ne c'est pas? Not from nearby, hm?''
''The neighboring spiral arm.''
''Ah. I think you have nothing to fear from us for several more months, hm?''
''The day will come--''
''How real are you, Canelle?''
Rubies glowed at her.
Pierrette swallowed a lump of dry crust. ''You are both a person . . . and a spark of light. A charm quark, ne c'est pas?''
''I am . . . energy, translated into matter.'' Pierrette grunted surprise, and she went on, with a desultory wave of her hand at the plate, ''You convert matter to energy. Why should the reverse process be so improbable? You are a substantial. You are matter, and you shape matter. We shape energy . . . as you see me.''
''You are . . . biophotique? And you were inside the light.''
''A whim, no more. I might have translated here--or anywhere--directly. I thought to leave the matter to chance.''
Pierrette washed down the last of the cheese with a final dollop of wine. Her eyes drifted, until, without warning or intent, they locked with Canelle's and held for several seconds. She reached a hand halfway across the table. ''Forgive me. My name is Pierrette. Please call me Peri.''
The charm quark accepted the offer. Again Pierrette stiffened in anticipation of a frisson, and was disappointed.
''Canelle, you call me.''
''Oui.''
''From another memory. A sweet, you said.'' Pierrette nodded. ''And you love this memory?''
''I had not thought of it in that way. It is a . . . fond memory, pleasant.'' She raised a pale eyebrow. ''It is important to you, to know about the love of things? Of people?''
''You act with an affinity for other substantials. I accept this and I would not change it even were I able to, but I would understand it.''
The light in the kitchen ceiling flickered.
''Is that you?'' asked Pierrette. Canelle shook her head. ''Then perhaps it warns of another outage. We may be dark for a time.''
''I can give you light.''
''I would not ask you to violate your prohibitions.''
''You are angry with me.''
''Oh, no. No, no.''
The lights in the cottage died. In the dark, Canelle's rubies glowed, rich coals in the depths of a tunnel.
''Come outside with me,'' said Pierrette, and gathered up Canelle's hand in hers.
"Will you sleep out here?" asked the charm quark, accepting.
"The night is very warm, hm? And I have done this on many nights before. This is where I watch the stars. The stars that are now watching me, hm?"
"You are also an astronomer."
Pierrette stretched out on the lounge to confront the Universe. "Not the technology and telescopes, the eye to the eyepiece, non. To see anything clearly, you must use both eyes. Look, and tell me what you see."
Above them a great gout of fresh cream spilled prismatic droplets across the black-lacquered dome of a vast stadium before dribbling off into the surrounding trees. On either side of the spill glittered tiny crystals. It was impossible to say, in late summer, whether the vaulted surface sparkled with this residue, or constituted in fact an opaque barrier, blocking an infinity of raw light beyond . . . whether humanity, observing and pointing, now and then, had pierced the barrier with its fingers, uncorking the light--of Regulus, and Antares, and of Vega, Sulaphat, and Sheliak, of Altair and Tarazed, names far more ancient than the light which now caught the eye and kindled the curiosity of Earth.
"Which," asked Pierrette, "is yours?"
"All of them."
The response left Pierrette breathless. She fell silent, eyes renewing acquaintances above her, connecting the dots, sketching fantastic shapes. In the intense rural darkness the stars shone a thousand times brighter than when viewed from Lyons or Nancy. They seemed alive . . . and perhaps they were. A streak briefly lit the sky--a stray Perseid? Or was this the manner in which Canelle had arrived?
To observe me? Me?
How small I must appear to her! Quelle insignifiance!
Pierrette did not look at her. "Canelle?"
"Yes, Peri."
"Canelle . . . I am thirty seven years old. I have passed perhaps half of the time I will be allotted. I grew up here, in this cottage, and in Troyes, where I purchased you. My family has a plot in the church cemetery there, where I will be buried one day with a few possessions that have some special significance to my life. Until then, I live. I studied at Grenoble and at Marseilles. I have arranged displays for artifacts from five continents, and dug for them on three. I write books for children. I drive a car that should be put to sleep. I do not cook well. I was married, once, briefly, but we had no children and we . . . drifted apart, because my work compelled me to travel. I have had lovers . . . but I prefer to live alone, and to visit when I feel . . . alone. I raise strawberries, and grow vegetables, and tend flowers. I do not dust as often as I should. I think I appreciate the stars more because much of my work is interior, at desks and displays, and underground. Once I thought to go up there, to see what is to be seen, but that is not for me to do. It is enough that the stars have come to me. I think it perhaps my destiny to be a connector. I take the past and, in some small way that is my own, make it palatable to the future. I have things I remember well, and things I wish to forget. You may find me anywhere. I am pleased that you found me. But you will leave, and you will not remember me."
"Peri?"
"What is it, Canelle?"
"Sleep."
And she did.
Fists on the counter top, Pierrette glared darts at the M'sieur le Cafe in an attempt to accelerate the brewing process by the power of her irritation, mentally assaulting the struggling appliance because the proper target of her sullen mood, a red charm quark, had abandoned her to a temperature fallen fifteen degrees from the evening and without a blanket. Power had returned to the cottage at some point, confusing the coffeemaker, whose crimson digits had commenced flashing 12:00 with the confidence of a metronome while the timer waited patiently--forever, if need be--for hours to coincide. A morning without coffee could be corrected by the flick of a thumb. But another morning alone . . .
She thumped the counter top. "Ou etes-vous? Where did you go, Canelle?"
Dark steaming liquid continued to dribble, tantalizing her with its aroma. The intoxication of the evening's company had yielded a morning hangover of loneliness. What, she wondered, were we drinking? There had been some talk of stars, and her life, and more stars, and . . . she rubbed her arms, still chilled.
You might have covered me, Canelle.
Or awakened me, and put me to bed . . . and let Michel think what he thinks.
Five reedy beeps invited Pierrette to pour. From the cupboard above the counter she selected a clean mug with the Coliseum enameled on one side and Roma in black letters on the other, and filled it, plopping in a cube of sugar and a dollop of cream to soften the bitterness. She wondered how Canelle took hers. Tasteless, perhaps the charm quark adopted a pattern espied in restaurants, the better to blend in despite her impossible epidermal tint. After a tentative sip, Pierrette worried at a blemish in the glazing with a nail, bleak black cumulous thoughts roiling her mind. The darkest hour did not occur just before dawn. It came when you awoke, shivering, expecting to find someone beside you, finding yourself alone.
Her eyes went to the mug. The Coliseum had endured two millennia of abuse, but already chips marred the enamel after only half a decade. Colin had bought it for her, from a kiosk near the Fontana di Trevi. She had promised to speak his name whenever she drank from it. Three weeks on a dig in arid Tunisia. Four days sharing the tent. She doubted he remembered her, or whether the enamel would outlast her own memory of him.
A ray of sunlight forced its way through the surrounding trees, through the back window, illuminating the calendar on the wall above the cooler, purchased in a market in Nancy. The month read juillet. She had neglected to change it. She grasped the bottom edge, and hesitated, letting the page fall back. Every morning of that month had met her expectations. Already aout, only half over, had failed her, beguiled her with its strawberry promises.
She trudged through the front room, pausing before the fireplace, debating whether to kindle a log. The flue had been swept in avril in preparation for the autumn, and two cords of wood had been stacked at the southeast end of the cottage, creating a disjointed labyrinth through which mice and snakes scurried and slithered in search of safety or a meal. She was still cold . . . but already the sun had begun to warm the cottage. The tacky lining of her mouth suggested that hygiene ought to be her first priority.
The bed remained unmade from the previous morning, the quilt bunched in the shallow depression along the left side where she slept, one pillow on the floor, silent witness to a restless slumber. Absently she straightened the bedding, a twinge of guilt prodding her into action, then went into the bain to draw the bath. Waiting, she peered through the steam at the reflection in the mirror. No new wrinkles to admonish her that the leaves were beginning to turn in her year. It should have been a glorious time, a prolonged flurry of orange and cerise and yellow before the brittle browns finally took up residence, but strawberry was the color of her mind now. She prodded a cheek. No sagging yet, not even an incipient jowlishness. The sun had treated her well, all those years, and the work had kept her fit. She drew the chemise over her head and searched for other gravitational effects. Her reflection fogged over while she conducted the daily check for lumps, as routine now as brushing her teeth--
She barked a laugh. Perhaps morning breath drove Canelle away.
The film stripped from her teeth--she retained all but the four wisdom and a small fragment of a lower incisor (now capped), the latter a loss to a happenstance encounter with a mallet--Pierrette wriggled out of her denims, and stepped to the tub just as the bain was redecorated in strawberry.
After exhausting her repertoire of hyphenated archeological words, Pierrette tried the direct approach. "Get out of my bath! Vite, vite! You will not observe me bathing."
Canelle was kneeling at the head of the claw bathtub, naked again, the water lapping at her thighs, dark green washcloth in one hand, bar of soap in the other.
"Please, Canelle . . . "
"I thought you would like me to wash you. This is what women do, ne c'est pas? Was the movie in error?"
Pierrette had not supposed the Playboy Channel a proper cultural briefing forum for extraterrestrial visitors. "Probably that was not exactly a movie, Canelle."
"It was intended to stimulate the reproductive process in men, yes, I understand that. But . . . how do you wash your back?"
Pierrette pointed to a long-handled brush hanging on a hook. "Please, Canelle. You have already left me in the cold once this morning, hm?"
Canelle rose. Water ran from her legs without beading. "You slept outside, as you chose--"
"Are you telling me that your rules forbid you to cover me with a blanket, but permit you to wash my back?"
About to step out of the tub, Canelle hesitated. "You would have been cold in any case, had you slept outside. Your back will be washed, regardless of what I do, non? But I thought to confirm my observation in that movie that the contact of bathing also stimulates you." "Out!"
"If you are sure--"
"Canelle, women don't . . . don't . . . "
But they do. Remember those weeks with Eugenie?
Pierrette withdrew a pace. Her epithet, directed at herself, came whispered. "Zut!" "Is that yes, or no?"
Pierrette took a shuddering breath. "Eh bien. You may wash my back. But no stimulation, hm?"
"D'accord."
"No!" "But that is what I saw." Pierrette almost turned around, eye contact requisite in a debate . . . or an argument. But to do so risked increasing her vulnerability. "Canelle . . . no. Just go, and let me finish." "But they seemed to enjoy it." "Precisement. They 'seemed' to. They were pretending, Canelle." "They did not have an affinity for one another?" "Please. Go into the front room, and wait for me there, hm?" "Affinity and stimulation are not the same. How are they different?" "Zut!" Water splashed as Pierrette whirled around, almost losing her footing. The charm quark made no effort to support her. "Could you love me, Canelle? Could you have an affinity for me?" "Affinity for a substantial? No, that is impossible for us." "But you could wash my . . . wash me, now that I am turned around." At this the charm quark lifted a soapy washcloth in preparation. Heart astutter, Pierrette firmly pushed her hands away. "What you saw as stimulation would have no meaning for me, Canelle. You would be pretending to care that I feel . . . pleasure. And I could not feel pleasure from pretense. For me, this 'affinity' must be reciprocal." Canelle lifted a crimson eyebrow, an acquired expression. "So you could have an affinity for me?" "Yes, I . . . no! Not for someone who left me outside to freeze! Not for someone who lets me fall, hm? Not for someone who treats me as an object, a substantial, to be stimulated, no!" She snatched the washcloth from Canelle. "Please, go to the front room." "You are angry with me." Pierrette softened. "No, Canelle, I am not angry with you, but with myself." "I do not understand." "The water is growing cold. I am starting to feel a chill." Canelle stepped from the tub, dry. Her feet left no puddle-prints on the speckled linoleum. At the doorway she paused, with a glance over her shoulder. "I mean you no harm, Peri." Pierrette scarcely heard her. On the verge of arousal, she began washing herself very gingerly.
Pierrette shivered, rubbing her arms. "The blue car," said Canelle. "It drove by. I think it was . . . Michel." "I wish you would put some clothes on, hm?" Immediately the charm quark garbed herself in a blue terrycloth robe, imitating Pierrette. "I did not mean to offend you." "Nue, you do not offend me, hm? But Michel . . . " "I do not understand." Pierrette grimaced. Having already said too much, she found herself obliged to say more. "After yesterday, and this morning, he probably thinks we are . . . lovers." "Like the shower in the movie." "No! Not like . . . Canelle, that is not being lovers. That is a . . . a . . . c'est une parodie, hm?" "And what is that?" "It is . . . playing at love." Canelle stepped through the doorway and around to the raised bed of marigolds. She tried to pluck a blossom, and instead uprooted the entire plant. Pierrette cried out in dismay. "Que fais-tu? Canelle, what are you doing?" She snared the marigold and crammed it back into the hole, packing soil around the stem. "If you want a flower, let me cut one for you," Pierrette grumbled, wiping her hands on the robe as she stood up. "You love the flowers. Even though they do not love you in return." Pierrette snorted, and scuffed at a clump of grass. "We had this discussion in the bath." "But does it not alter your feelings for the object of your affection, if it is not returned?" "Unrequited love, hm?" She led Canelle to a wooden bench bought at a park sale years before, and they sat down. The climbing roses filtered the sunlight, dappling them, while Pierrette struggled with her thoughts. The charm quark was beginning to intrude into a solitude she had long taken for granted. Worse, though uncomfortable with the tack Canelle's seemingly ingenuous queries had taken, she had confined herself to the bench, an easy target for more discomfort. She covered her face with her hands, concealing dry tears of frustrated ambivalence. Am I so desperate for a companion? Are we talking about us, or about the marigolds? "If I felt love," she said slowly, gathering momentum to break through a wall she had inadvertently erected, "it might grow stronger, were it not returned. In time, it might become an obsession . . . dangereux. In that direction, for us, lies a madness . . . " Within her billowed an urge to treat Canelle as a companion, a confidante . . . to touch her in punctuation as she spoke, to meet her eyes, jade upon ruby . . . Pierrette shook herself, a dog out of the bath, to regain control. "Canelle, you said 'object of your affection.' That has two meanings, hm? It is a reference to the one you love . . . un synonyme, hm? But in another sense, it implies that the one you love is an object, a thing, a . . . substantial, as you say. I love the flowers, the marigolds, the artifacts in my cottage. No, they do not love me in return. But if I loved you, Canelle . . . it would be wrong to regard you as an artifact. To do so would demean both of us." "I cannot love you." "Even so." Pierrette reached up and plucked an older rose bloom. A thorn from the stem remnant pierced her finger. Briefly she sniffed the dying fragrance, then offered the flower to Canelle while she sucked at the droplets of blood that formed. The charm quark seemed oblivious to the barbed stem. She thrust her nose into the bloom as Pierrette had done. You cannot taste, or smell. You cannot love. Suddenly she grabbed Canelle's hand and opened it. Scarlet beads ribboned the strawberry fingers and palm as the rose, freed, tumbled to the ground. "Canelle . . . how can you bleed?"
"It is a cosmetic injury." Instantly the blood vanished, the hand regaining its normal appearance. "I thought the vulnerability might reassure you . . . "
"Instead you disconcert me." Pierrette gave her a sidelong look. "So you can act with respect to my own feelings, hm? But it is acting, ne c'est pas? Like those women you saw. It is not real."
"If you close your eyes, I promise you, you will not know the difference."
A chill fluttered up along Pierrette's spine, and she trembled, annoyed with herself for the momentary surrender.
"You will leave," she said, in a hollow, haunted tone, "and you will not even remember me." Abruptly she got to her feet and swept inside, the charm quark following attentively. "None of what we might share would mean anything to you, except as an observation, an experience for you to analyze as you will, hm?"
"But how can you love an object?"
"A substantial?" Pierrette raised the lip of the bell jar and withdrew the bisque drinking cup. "Perhaps ‘love' is too general. It is what we say, Canelle. It is the word we use. We love this movie or that book or such a car. Perhaps 'cherish' is more accurate . . . but less romantic, less emotional, hm? And we are a romantic species, above all. We live and we die for our loves. I love this cup. I have never drunk from it, nor have I done anything but display it, and yet I love it. Of all the members of my family, my grandfather encouraged me the most in my studies and in my work. He was my guide, my mentor, my . . . my shoulder to cry on. When I received my diploma, he gave me this. When I die, it will be buried with me, to comfort my spirit. It has little intrinsic value, hm? Yet, whenever I see it, I think of him, of all that he meant to me. When I say I love this cup, I am saying I love him. Perhaps we love our objects for their emotional content . . . for their 'insubstantial' content. For the pleasure or the pain or the memory they represent."
"But what would I represent to you, if you loved me?"
Pierrette replaced the cup on the shelf and sealed it under the bell jar. "That is far more complex. This cup is incapable of returning love. The love that exists between it and myself travels in one direction only. I can control it, direct it, determine its boundaries, hm? But when it travels in both directions . . . perhaps it sets its own boundaries."
"I told you: I cannot love you. I can only act love."
Pierrette's eyes dropped to the floor between them. "Perhaps, as you say, I will not know the difference."
A shadow fell upon her. Just inside the doorway a pale, gaunt middle-aged man had come to a halt. He was dressed in the manner of a villager. His face utterly lacked expression. The shotgun in his hands swept the room and came to rest on Canelle, its lifeless black caves staring at her.
Pierrette inserted herself between them. "Mon Dieu! Michel . . . que fais-tu?"
Michel blinked, his dull gray eyes refocusing on the nearer object.
"Who is he?" asked Canelle.
"From my past, long ago. Michel, please. Leave us. We'll forget this, hm?"
The shotgun steadied. "When you moved back here, I thought . . . I hoped . . . "
"We were children, Michel. We did what children do, hm? I loved you then. I do not love you now. Please, go."
"But now you love this . . . woman?"
"No. Yes!" She took a step forward, arms outstretched, half-defensive, half-pleading. "What if I do, Michel?"
The explosion shook the cottage. The compact burst of pellets drove Pierrette into Canelle, and they tumbled backwards, caroming off the desk and knocking over the brass pole lamp. It fell against the wall, the ampoule de fete shattering with an audible pop. Blood surged from the gaping hole in Pierrette's chest as Canelle lowered her to the floor.
Michel reversed the shotgun, placing the barrel under his chin, and thumbed the other trigger. A red geyser spattered the ceiling and front windows. His decapitated torso blocked the doorway.
Canelle slipped to her knees, inspecting the wound with a surgeon's detachment. Blood dripped from her hands without staining them. "Yes, Peri, I will leave, as I must. But you are wrong: I cannot forget you." "Nor I you," whispered Pierrette, and died.
The room faded from strawberry to daylight.
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(c) 2007 Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company