Illegal Liaisons (17 page)

The Pavlov Dogs yapped in Jonathan’s head even as he jogged around Cinquantenaire Park; and – wonders never cease – the point at which he usually grew tired was when he passed one of Brussels’s strange statues, the statue of a dog. The subject was attracted to him like filings to a magnet – Antosia told him how her friend’s bitch had run away during a walk and come back pregnant, then Megi came across a second-hand clothes shop right next to the statue of a dog like the one in
Tintin
. Their daughter begged them to take in one of her friend’s puppies when they were born; his wife was fascinated by the fact that the bronze dog was peeing.

Jonathan absorbed the information and, although not everything suited his story, something filtered through; be it the nervy peeing here and there of the leader of the mongrel pack or the polygamous personality of the prettiest bitch. Something even made him call one of his chapters “Pushing to get down in the gutter.”

His students appeared after the holidays in practically the same line-up. Cecile said it was rare for people to go back to writing after the holidays, just like when learning a foreign language.

Jonathan entered the building with a certain thrill. The stone statues in little hats seemed to greet him; the man sitting in the glass-fronted kiosk marked “Information” welcomed him as one of his own. A moment later, gray-haired Geert, sun-tanned Ariane, Jean-Pierre in the immortal jacket that served him throughout all the seasons of the year, and British Kitty, now with longer hair, walked in; only the oldest participant, Nora, was missing. Jonathan asked whether they’d written anything during the
holidays – they answered with smiles full of embarrassment, and Ariane pulled a thick notebook bound in cream canvas from her bag.

“My daughter gave this to me,” she said. “I’ve been writing in it for some time now.”

“What are you writing?” They leaned toward her; Ariane opened the book. The sentence on the first page looked like embroidery on a kitchen wall-hanging.

“What’s that maxim?” asked Kitty.

“It’s a sentence from
The House of Spirits
. I love that book!”

They leaned over the entry.

“… ‘if you call things by their name, they materialize …,’ ” Geert translated the beginning.

“… ‘and you can no longer ignore them because …”,” continued Kitty.

“ ‘If,’ ” Ariane corrected her. “ ‘If, however, they remain in the realm of words unuttered …”

“ ‘… with time they may vanish into thin air.’ ” Geert adjusted his glasses.

They fell silent. A tram rumbled past the window.

“That fits in with the former subject we studied.” Jonathan smiled. “To ‘The Semantics of Love.’ ”

“Former?” Ariane pulled herself up. “But that’s why I’m writing in this book!”

“Really?” Jonathan was pleased.

Ariane answered with a smile; Geert nodded.

“But isn’t it a stupid subject?” Jonathan let out.

Jean-Pierre stopped sprawling over two chairs and sat up straight.

“It’s broad,” he said after some thought.

Geert agreed.

“A lot falls into place because of it. I hear more, feel more.”

“Me, too.” Kitty laid her hand over her pretty bust. “After all, you did tell me to write with tenderness.”

“Buy yourself something like this.” Ariane leaned over to her, indicating her notebook. “No, wait, I’ll buy it for you!”

“But going back to that quotation,” said Geert, “I wonder … What if things that have been given a name do become real?”

“I’ve got a practical question,” said Ariane. “Does anyone know where Anaïs Nin hid her diaries?”

“In a bank safe,” replied Jean-Pierre. “Before that idea occurred to her she used to keep her secret one somewhere at home covered with an “overt” one. But later on, when she had piles of them – and some of them almost got lost during her travels – she decided to keep them in a bank safe.”

“And Henry Miller, where did he keep his?” asked Ariane.

Jean-Pierre looked at her derisively.

“Wherever he pleased. What did he have to be scared of?”

Megi leaned over the dark desk; there were a few dents in the wood. The shadow of swelling veins slowly appeared on her hands.

“No,” said Jonathan. “I don’t want old furniture in my home.”

Megi tore her eyes and her fingers away from the texture of the surface. Tomaszek’s squeals as Antosia tickled him came from another part of the shop.

“Why not?”

“I’ve already told you.” He looked around because a thud had reached him from the corner where the children were. “Buying antiques is for the senile. Look around, who comes here to buy anything? Nobody but old fogies.”

“Who, please God, don’t speak Polish.”

“It’s a different matter if the piece of furniture’s been in the family for years. But I don’t intend to bring home something I know nothing about.”

“Don’t you think it’s mysterious?”

“About as mysterious as second-hand underwear.”

The search for desks had already taken them two weekends. Jonathan was annoyed, not so much by the antiques to which Megi persisted in returning as by having to drive around instead of resting. A side effect of moving was the need to throw away old things and buy new ones, just as one of the consequences of having children was constantly having to provide them with something new because they kept growing out of their old things. Jonathan was ground down by the cogs of small necessities.

“Let’s go to IKEA then,” sighed Megi, settling in the front seat of their car.

“And didn’t I say so from the start?” muttered Jonathan, at the last moment pulling out a half-empty carton of juice from beneath him.

The aisle in IKEA led them relentlessly through areas packed with wardrobes, beds, chairs, picture frames, while the children managed to find ways of disappearing in one place and leaping out from another. Megi, in the meantime, filled the yellow and blue bag at an alarming rate with what, in Jonathan’s opinion, were unnecessary objects.

“You said you didn’t want any Swedish artificial egalitarianism at home.” He ruffled his hair as she threw a bathroom rug into the bag.

“Jonathan, those old rags on our floor …” she retorted, assessing the shade of the towels stacked nearby.

He turned so as not to look at this when he heard someone calling him. Kitty stood by a shelf of vegetable graters and next to her were a stout man and a chubby child in a buggy.

“We’re looking for a high chair for Emma.” Kitty indicated the little girl who raised her eyes and studied Jonathan intently.

Unknowingly, he answered the child’s gaze with a smile. Little Antosia had stared like that when she was a baby. “Studying objects,” he and Megi used to call it, admiring how she turned a building brick or spoon in her hands – a miniature scientist.

“And we’re looking for desks for the children.” He waved toward Tomaszek, who was swinging on some curtains. Antosia was not in sight, hiding behind bales of material no doubt.

“Let me introduce you,” he turned to Kitty as Megi approached. “This is my wife. And this is Kitty who comes to my writing course.”

“My wife,” he repeated, introducing her to Kitty’s partner.

Once they’d parted ways, Megi forged ahead without a word.

“Megi,” he called, seeing a desk he thought might be suitable for Antosia. “Wait!”

She turned with a long face.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I began to think you might have forgotten my name.”

He pulled himself up, looking at her helplessly.

“ ‘This is my wife,’ ‘my wife,’ ” she continued, mimicking him. “Have you forgotten what I’m called? I’m Megi!”

She cheered up only once they’d decided on two small desks and were headed to the check-out. On the way, she stopped at the mirror department; he walked up to her and put his arms around her, stroking her hair.

“Well,” he murmured. “That’s out of the way. We coped. As always.”

He looked at her face reflected in the mirror, then took in everything, the two of them, the furniture shop.

“Yes, as always.”

He ran his hand over her cheek, turned, and called the children. He kept calling them even though they’d heard him a long time ago. He called to deafen the thought that had jabbed at him unexpectedly as he gazed into the mirror. Even when you’re old, I’ll love you, he’d thought. Even when you’re old, Andrea.

They circle each other on the pretext of talking; the air sparkles with tension. He comes up to her, pulls up her skirt and caresses her naked butt. His cock presses against his trousers; he swiftly sets it free with his other hand and rubs it against her buttocks. She turns her head and searches for his lips – there they are, the hungry cavern with sharp teeth tears at her lip. She turns and adheres to him with her whole body, slips off her skirt, shakes off her shoes and stands before him in her stockings and summer top.

They move away from each other and, feigning cool, go to the bedroom. Beside the bed, she unbuttons his shirt and licks his chest; he impatiently throws off his trousers, slips off his boxer shorts. He forgets that the socks should go first, then pulls them off, holding on to her hand like a blind man. He kneels in front of the triangle of hair, catches her labia in his lips, slips his tongue beneath them and licks the hollows. He is in her groin, smoothes her clitoris, teases her pussy with his tip.

Juices run from her when he grabs the muscles of her thighs. He strokes them gently; they shake beneath his fingers. He sits her on the edge of the bed and with one hand on her hips, parts her thighs with the other. He licks her there, listening to her sighs; her smooth thighs tug at his ears.

She lies on her back; shudders run through her body; she tingles right down to her toes. She tells him this but the words become incomprehensible; the explosion of orgasm leaves her wordless for a few seconds. He licks her belly, sides, breasts; gathers all of her, submissive and hot, and lies on her. Nothing separates them, except his cock between their naked bellies.

She pushes him on his back and wraps her thighs around his hips; the tip of his penis jabs her groin. “Sit, sit!” he begs her while she lowers herself with teasing slowness, her hair hiding her wide-open eyes and falling over her lips. She rocks rhythmically until the muscles in his stomach grow tense. He has to get out of her, cool off a bit.

He enters her again, smoothly, from the back, he draws the shape of her butt with his fingers, harder and harder. “I mustn’t have any marks,” she pleads breathlessly, and lies on her side while he, behind her, enters and pulls out, a sweating automaton. He turns on his back and scoops up her butt; she sits on him backward; her gently muscular back arches beneath his fingers. He slides his hands down to her hips and leads them up and down, spears her so her head sways, her face turns to the ceiling – until her groan bounces off him.

He pulls her damp body on top of him, turns her lips to his lips and slips into her from beneath; slowly he pushes his tongue into her mouth. The head of his cock, hard as stone, rubs against her inner lining; and finally shudders convulsively. As he injects his charge of sperm into her, Andrea bites his lips. They bleed, but Jonathan doesn’t feel it.

W
HEN HE RETURNED
from Poland after Christmas, Jonathan understood why people in the north didn’t know how to flirt while those in the south seemed constantly aroused. The secret lay in the amount of clothing. As soon as he left the plane in Brussels, although busy gathering the children and suitcases, and finding a taxi, his eyes veered toward several girls; he did what he hadn’t done for a long time – he undressed them with his eyes.

A perfectly real question – what a woman wore underneath – started to prey on him, not sparing even the mothers he met at school when he fetched the children. With a new proficiency, he divided the women into categories so as not to bother eyeing those in tracksuits, those who dressed sensibly, or those who were too tall or plump.

Showiness ceased to offend him. If a woman emphasized something with what she wore – or didn’t wear – she must obviously have something
to show. He rejected Megi’s comments – with which he had until recently agreed – that an attitude like that was crude and followed the line of least resistance. He was now a turned-on teenager and a self-confident man. To his satisfaction, there was no woman who didn’t feel this – even through layers of winter clothing.

When he walked down the street with Stefan, their heads now turned in rhythm: a woman – turn of the neck – another – a fawning glance – a chick in boots – aaah! The last remnants of embarrassment dissolved, and Jonathan rode the wave of spring that overtook the winter and set itself free from the shell of ice in a stream of smiles, glances and flutterings, until he felt a whirlpool of heat within.

“What is it?” he asked his friend once when they’d popped into a bar for a beer after the gym.

Stefan followed his bright eyes.

“An umbrella stand,” he explained.

“I wasn’t thinking about that. Are you having something?” Jonathan broke off because the waiter they called the Lion King, due to his mane of hair, stood beside them.

“All that exercise has made me hungry, I think I’ll have a croque monsieur.” Stefan flicked through the menu, undecided. “Or no, I’ll have a croque madame.
Pour moi, le croque madame, s’il vous plaît
.”

Instead of listening to Stefan who was telling him all about Przemek’s maneuvers to settle into a government position in the future, Jonathan immersed himself in recollections of the previous evening.

The lights on the sound system glimmered, music seeped slowly, the sound of horses’ hooves came from the window.

“Mounted police,” whispered Andrea and huddled up closer in the crook of his arm.

“They won’t find us.” He smiled in the half-light and kissed her hair.

The squeaking of trams and the distant wail of a fire engine woke him at dawn. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. He stared at the colorful stripes of the sheets, the books piled up by the wall, the navy-blue alarm clock, children’s drawings. He peered over his shoulder – next to him lay Megi.