Consequences (6 page)

Then he was victimized by that hallucination again. For the second time that evening he saw Myriam, and this time she was walking straight toward him.

“Listen I lost my car keys,” she announced, avoiding his eyes. “Truth is, I've really lost my keys.”

“Keys? Oh. You look frozen stiff.”

“Am. Waited for you. I recognized your car.”

“Well, believe it or not, I was trapped in the elevator.”

“Listen, I thought you could drop me off. I thought, ‘I'm going to wait for him and ask, find out.' ”

“I certainly can. Get in. It would be a real pleasure. It's going to get cold again, all this week. That's what I heard. That pressure system can't seem to stabilize. Think it's a bad sign? We certainly will find out what the future has in store for us . . . ,” he blurted out, opening the door for her.

As he was buying a ticket to exit the parking garage, he observed her from a distance. The machine kept refusing his card, so he felt irritated, and happy about her being there at the same time. This was nothing like his reaction to the various students he'd been involved with all these years. Not at all the same—no comparison. Despite the cold, she'd opened her window—rare were those who appreciated the bitter, pungent odor of old tobacco in the reduced space of a closed car. Now he had a full view of her profile, and he saw how extraordinarily strong it was.

His oldest conquest had been twenty-six the day they separated. Myriam was twenty years older. He knew as much as a baby would about such a new domain, but he also instinctually knew that nothing would get simpler or gain more clarity—not when it came to the heart of a woman—no matter how the two of them went about it.

He who expected nothing would never be disappointed. He not guilty of optimism would never suffer a fall. He who confronted the mountain patiently and humbly would arrive at his goals. He who didn't overestimate his powers was a formidable adversary. He found the exit ticket he'd bought earlier. Just one second of imagining how frustrated a sergeant's spouse could
be when he was on maneuvers at the other end of the world might give him a stroke, it occurred to him as he climbed in next to his passenger, whose face had a faraway smile.

He who travels light won't arrive done in. He who doesn't live on hope won't die of exhaustion.

Night enclosed the world around them like a bell jar. The parking lot felt as if it were perched on the summit of a steep peak, like an eagle's nest. “We should put on some music,” she said after a moment.

He folded his glasses and slipped them into his pocket. “Karen Dalton?” he suggested.

He leaned sideways so he could reach the glove compartment, glancing as he did at her thighs emphasized by silky pantyhose, the color of cream. It wasn't hard to imagine her in a bathing suit—or better yet, in her underwear. Not much more than forty-five years old. In peak condition. Intellectually mature. What more was there to say about it? Could you imagine a more perfect creation, more unnerving company?

The idea of awakening the interest of a person like her wasn't a turn-off; it was actually good for his self-esteem, he supposed—being able to interest someone with a mind, who had taste and experience in life. Suddenly he was struck by the mediocrity of his relationships with the student population. Sexuality hadn't made that world any less impermeable. Most of those women had turned out to be kind, clever, energetic lovers; but no real exchange had taken place, no real connection been made. Now he understood why.

Something inside him had opened up, hatched inside his chest—passing from childhood into adulthood provoked similar feelings. Something had slowly matured, a secret gestation
that had produced a new man, born on that night.
After this
, he asked himself as he pressed the buttons of the CD player in search of that heartrending voice,
can I ever go back to the young girls I liked before? Will I lose all interest in them
? For one thing, as a professor, a person who spent the better part of his time with them, he wasn't especially looking forward to such a change—although it wasn't up to him. These things couldn't be controlled.

She placed her hand on his arm. “Isn't this a strange situation?” she said. “But I would do something like that. I'm exhausted, don't sleep well, so I'm not thinking very clearly.”

“You know, when you touch me, I feel something like an electric current. Don't you?”

“No. I mean I don't know.”

“Any news from your husband?”

She shook her head. He reached for the key to the ignition, but she stopped him again.

“I can't even remember his name anymore,” she said, staring into space. “This morning I drew a blank. It took me several seconds before I could say it. . . . It's awful of me, I know, truly awful on my part. Disgraceful.”

“No it isn't. Not on your life. Listen to me, Myriam, not on your life. No one forced him to have an army career. He's got only himself to blame.”

“That electric current you mentioned, what is it?”

“That electric current I mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“That electric current I mentioned?”

“Yes.”

He felt his mouth becoming dry. It was cold outside, and so
was the inside of the Fiat, because he hadn't started the motor yet. His nose felt frozen.

“I'm afraid of us getting stuck in here,” he said. “We'd better not linger. It happened to me once. Luckily, it was summer.”

“Marc, if you only knew how much I'm longing for summer to start.”

“It's coming. The buds are here. When you look up it's green.”

The conversation was becoming surreal. They could have floated to the middle of the cosmos, to the dead center of night, lost themselves in the middle of nothingness. What difference did it make?

Now his heart was beating as if he'd begun jogging peacefully along the lake. No student had ever had such an effect on him. Karen Dalton was singing “Everytime I Think of Freedom.”

“I love that woman's voice,” he declared.

She nodded. Then she took his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

On such occasions
, he said to himself,
you miss being the owner of an Audi A8 with leather interior.

Now it felt like he was going as fast as the wind, at about 140 rpm. Despite the fact that he wasn't moving. An amazing phenomenon in itself.

Her lips brushed his hand, and she raised her eyes to his. “Do I kiss you?” she murmured. He nodded gently. She wasn't his mother, his sister. She didn't have to stop. His only regret had to do with how uncomfortable the Fiat was—unworthy of such a woman—but we don't always get what we want, and many of his relationships had been nipped in the bud because
of a bad start, an inappropriate place, etc. There wasn't much you could do about it. It was just one gigantic crapshoot.

He thought briefly about the sergeant wandering among the stones of a rock-strewn desert, praying not to fall into an ambush, praying to keep alive.

He got home late. About
two in the morning. That night, at the wheel of his throbbing motor, as he was driving through the silent forest, he felt as if he were sawing the world in two with an enormous chainsaw, awakening in his path the smallest field mouse, the tiniest creature, crow, worm. He'd lost a good part of his muffler, he was sure of it. And experience told him that, even if he finished the trip at the same speed and cut the motor, there was a fifty-percent chance she'd hear him arrive. Or she'd be waiting for him because she was in a state. Or else asleep, but listening with one ear.

“Do you know what time it is?” she said as he was getting ready to go straight up to his room.

She'd just used the remote control to turn the lights on in the hallway and had caught him with a foot in the air and a hand on the banister.

Then she turned on the lights in the living room, lowered the lamps, with the same device. “Well finally. Where'd you go?”

He waved the cigarettes and the stuff from the pharmacy in front of her. “Everything's here. Everything you wanted.”

She dove onto the pack of cigarettes and nervously unwrapped it. “Hello? Have you seen what time it is? There isn't a single lousy butt in this goddamn house. But I guess you think that's funny. After all, it only took you seven or eight hours.”

“Calm down and listen. It so happens I was stuck in the shopping mall parking garage. That's what happened. The barrier came up out of the ground and blocked me from getting back down. Stuck. I was stuck up there all this time. That's the real story of what happened.”

“Fascinating,” she said in a grating voice. “What you're telling me is fascinating.”

“I didn't have my phone. Or I would have called. I knew you were waiting. I smoke, too, you know. You don't have to draw me a picture. You think I'd have been capable of deserting you? You think I didn't know you were walking in circles like a rabid animal? Of course I noticed how long it was taking. And I was worried sick about it, but all of them were so slow I could have hung around all night in their damned parking garage.”

“You smell sweaty. I can smell your body odor from here.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not surprised. It wasn't a walk in the park. I mean, I was purple with rage. I came close to pounding that machine into the ground when it kept insisting my ticket to get out wasn't valid, repeating it ad nauseum. All that technology can end up driving you out of your mind, don't you think?”

He was surprised at the ease with which he handled the conversation, the way all the words came flowing from his mouth. The woman he'd held in his arms only a few moments before was still in them. His mind was so full of her that this conversation seemed like a miracle.

The next day, the same thing happened. Myriam was the first image to cross his mind, as soon as he opened his eyes from a deep, subterranean sleep.

He went downstairs and squeezed some oranges, made toast and buttered it, put some jam on it, and poured a bowl
of rolled oats with maple syrup, because he was determined to keep an eye on Marianne's health, bring back a little color with the arrival of spring. He put all of it on a tray. Humming softly, he carried it into her bedroom. She was still asleep. Or faking it.

He put down the tray and decided to sit next to her in the dark. The smell of that room was truly disturbing—always had been. There was a morning odor in that room before Marianne rose, as if a part of her body had evaporated during the night and was floating in the tepid air.

He had a whole list of suggestions for her but did nothing more than open his mouth and keep it that way for an instant, before his lips rejoined. After lighting a cigarette, he took a notebook from his pocket and scribbled a few words to her. It was the beginning of a lovely, cool, luminous, day—a few crystalline rays pierced the gaps in the curtain. But the most amazing thing of all happened as he was writing those two or three sentences; in fact, just as he was tracing out each letter: once again, he saw a few fragments of his embrace with Myriam the night before in that miserable little car where they'd gone at it, and he was secretly shaken by these visions.

Not that he regretted giving in totally to the adventure, which he immediately classified among the best—sexually speaking. But he was aware of the measure of danger in it too, or rather, wasn't measuring anything at all. The truth was that he found himself at the edge of an abyss and was having a hard time forming an opinion about what had happened. About this unknown territory into which he'd wandered and about which he knew nothing. His only expertise came from the world of students, malleable types; beyond that he understood nothing. Had to play it safe. Myriam could change things dramatically,
irrevocably. His instinct could fathom it fully. His body clearly understood the message of the current, those subtle vibrations she was transmitting. His mind, on the other hand, seemed to be refusing to put itself on alert.

Just before he walked into class, Richard Olso stopped him in the hall for news about Marianne. “I want to be sure that you're doing what needs to be done, old man, I'd like to be sure of it.” He added that he'd pay her a visit—today, even. If Marc saw nothing inconvenient about it. Both of them snickered self-consciously.

The department had organized a program of panels and meetings with professional Hollywood screenwriters, and everybody wanted to learn how to concoct a series or whatever else would rake in millions and bring with it the privilege of dining at Steven Spielberg's table—before having coffee with Nicole Kidman. He took advantage of his students' defection to go and get his muffler changed, in anticipation of more discreet destinations, should the need arise. Obviously, the wisest thing was not to see her again and forget her as quickly as possible—that is, if he had an iota of sense left.

Annie Eggbaum wasn't particularly attractive,
but she could help him get back his equilibrium if he decided to. Her face was nothing special—bland, and quality or originality weren't present in her work. But she had a good body and was making use of lower and lower necklines as the year advanced.

Once he had his new muffler, he went back to his office. He was looking over the papers that some of the students had handed in when she leaned in toward him—chest first—and begged him again to give her those private lessons she so direly
needed. No exaggeration there—the poor girl would never be able to write a single good sentence.

“Annie, listen. I don't know what to tell you. Stop bugging me. I truly believe these classes are a waste of time. You have no ear, and I'm afraid I can't do anything about it. Why are you insisting?”

“I'll work. I'll work twice as hard. Writing's a question of work. It's ninety-nine percent work. You say that all the time.”