The Age of Desire (28 page)

Together, with Edith in the middle, they climb arm in arm in arm up the narrow lane toward the cathedral. And then suddenly, there it is: the choir of the great church, a dizzying circle of ivory vaults rising like a dream against the azure sky.

“One can almost see it turn,” Morton says. “Wheeling cosmically through space.”

“Its own planet,” Edith says, breathlessly.

He takes her arm and presses it to him, enfolds her hand in his warm one. If her life could end this moment, she’d be happy. She reaches out her free hand and takes Henry’s plump one.

“I’ll never forget this day,” she says. “Never.”

Later, while Henry makes a tour of the ambulatory, Edith and Morton wait for him, basking in the sun—as in Montfort on the warmed stone steps—leaning against one another. She has never felt closer to him, even in that old ruin. For here she feels their hearts entwined in view of the whole world.

“Dear, are you happy?” he asks her, just as he had at Montfort.

“I don’t think,” she tells him, “I ever imagined being so happy.”

I must pack this day away in a great flurry of excelsior and cotton, she thinks. Soon, it will be just a memory.

ELEVEN

Only after such days, the blankness, the intolerableness of the morrow—the day when one does not see you! What a pity that one cannot live longer in the memory of such hours—that the eager heart must always reach out for more and more! I used to think: “If I could be happy for a week—an hour!” And now I am asking to be happy all the rest of my life. . . .

Poor hearts, in this shifting stream of life, so hungry for permanence and security! As I wrote these lines, I suddenly said to myself, “I will go with him once before we separate.”

It would hurt no one—it would give me my first, last draught of life . . . why not? I have always laughed at the “mala prohibita”—“bugbears to frighten children.” The antisocial is the only one that is harmful “per se.” And, as you told me the other day—and I need no telling!—what I have given already is far, far more. . . .

A
fter they have put Henry on the train at the Gare du Nord, with kisses and a basket of food, trying not to notice the tears shimmering in his pale eyes, they wave the train down the track and are alone at last together. Their bodies cleave toward one another, their hearts racing.

“Shall we?” Morton says in a voice so rich and secretive, Edith can feel the vibration of it in her own throat.

The train to Montmorency is on Track 5 and they hurry, not touching but leaning toward one another. Leaning and longing. She can feel his presence to her marrow. The train glistens in the shafts of white light from above as though lit by angels. Others are sliding open the doors and entering. They walk far down the platform to find an empty car. Alone in the sunny maple compartment, their hands reach out beneath Edith’s spread skirts and grab onto each other. When the train jerks forward, Edith knows she has not felt more thrilled, expectant and fearful since that day at the Frascati Gardens preparing for her one and only ride on the Chemin de Centrifuge.

Soon the countryside rolls out beside them. The sweetest green of the new leaves. The blossoms of every kind of fruit tree. The just-born beds of lettuces and beans. And the
châtaigniers
, the chestnut trees, lacy margins between the fields, their white-blossomed cones thrusting toward the sky. Not a word passes between them. Sometimes, on other journeys, Morton has grown quiet, lost in thought, far from her. But this silence is shared, carried between them like a child, one hand in each of her parents’ hands, being swung joyously over a curb.

During Henry’s visit, they were able to steal just moments of time alone. An occasional dinner when Henry was off honoring other invitations. A walk now and then in the Luxembourg Gardens squeezed from the lackluster substance of their busy days. But sometimes there was a sparkling, thrilling kiss in the shadows. A dangerous press of bodies in a doorway. Too many days their plans fell through, though. Morton was too busy. At the last minute, plans were canceled. Never before has Edith suffered such swings from euphoria to despair. The thrill of hearing Morton call her “mon amour.” The desolation when no note arrives. These swerves of spirit are new and frightening. Elation collapses like a soufflé snatched clumsily from an oven. And then her heart soars again when her breakfast tray provides a note saying Morton could hardly work all day for thinking of her.

But now, at last, there is nothing standing between Edith and Morton. And as the train chugs toward Montmorency, she wishes to leave all her sadness behind, to be open to this man in a way she has never allowed herself to be—with anyone. All her life she has been “good.” But how has it served her to be true to a man who has never given her pleasure? To do what is expected of her, but do nothing to increase her own joy?

Morton, she suspects, has never been good or cared for the appellation. What did Anna de Noailles say about him? That he had a reputation. Why were men allowed to pursue their desires while the world turned a blind eye . . . but women became “fallen women,” “ruined souls” if they did the very same? The dishonesty of it, the unfairness of it swells her with determination.

The day is hot, and the train grows warmer as it flies beneath the sunshine. Morton leans over and slides open a window. The breeze wafts in and Edith unbuttons the top button of her dress to catch it. Morton smiles at her when she does and she beams back.

The train leaves them off at a shady station, Morton helping her down, his hands about her waist. A walk through the streets of Montmorency shows them pretty vanilla-colored houses and flowers everywhere.

“So this is where Rousseau walked and had deep thoughts. Shall we go up to the church first?” Morton asks.

“To pray for our souls?” Edith teases.

“Yes. Seems only right,” he says. “Then we’ll see Rousseau’s house.”

Edith has read only a bit of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writing. But she knows he focused on how children are born “natural” and how society ruins us, perverts us, sends us away from all that matters. For the first time in her life, she is delving deep for what is in her soul—the childlike soul that all these years has been strangled by strictures. Morton takes her hand. Ah, the joy of being so open, so free.

They walk quietly through the St. Martin and she takes in the stained glass windows, the smell of long-ago smoke, the cool damp that seems a relief on such a hot day. And then they walk just a few streets away to the white house with the many-paned windows where Rousseau lived. Just before they enter, in the front garden of the house, amidst the blossoms and the flutter of new leaves, he kisses her.

“Dearest,” he whispers.

She feels as though happiness might immolate her. But she enters the house, feigning deep interest, inspecting the rooms where Rousseau wrote, dreamed, thought new thoughts that stirred a nation. The tiny desk where he penned
The Social Contract
strikes Edith as humble. She is grateful that Morton is thoughtful enough to let them be tourists for a while. Maybe he is only feigning interest too. He never lets go of her hand. Oh! She is smitten. Lost. She did not know that her ability to love could be so expansive, so generous. He could break her heart and she would not stop loving him. There is almost no disappointment he could conjure that would break the spell of her love for him. This alone seems a gift.

The church bells are chiming noon when they leave Rousseau’s house, and the sun is high.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Come. I know just the place.” The inn is called La Châtaigneraie, and the courtyard where they are led to a quiet table is indeed surrounded by chestnut trees festooned with towering snowy coneflowers. A sweet young girl takes their order. Her father, presumedly, pours the wine. A mother with a sleeping baby sits at a far table with her husband, laughing at his banter. A butterfly alights on the vase of flowers set in the middle of their table.

If I die soon, I will have at least had this, she thinks. I will have known happiness. If I had died just a few weeks ago, I would never have believed what I was missing. The thought wounds her in a strange, delicious way. She wants to keep poking at it, reminding herself to take it all in.

She drinks more wine than she should. The giddiness she already feels marries with the alcohol to take away her last ounce of reluctance.

“Have you planned where we’re going?” she asks Morton.

“Just upstairs,” he says when he’s paid the bill and smoked a cigarette. “Are you ready?”

She nods.

Their room is large and full of light and peeks through the lacy chestnut blossoms out over the courtyard. It’s just a simple space beneath the eaves, with wallpaper of blue morning glories climbing from baseboards to ceiling, and a cotton rug. Morton cranks open the windows and Edith sits on the bed.

“This is lovely, isn’t it?” he asks her.

“Yes.” She wonders if he has ever brought a woman here before. They were kind to him in the courtyard. Did they recognize him? She swats the thought from her mind.

She is afraid she will fail him. And if so, this could be the last time they are together. This new worry flits around her wine-dazzled brain.

He sits beside her and reaches for her chin, gently tilting her face toward his. His eyes are as kind as she’s ever seen them.

“You’re afraid,” he says.

“Yes.”

“We needn’t make this fearful at all. Not at all.”

“I’m not good at this,” she says. “At so many things in my life, I’ve worked hard to excel, to learn. At this, I am an abject failure.”

“Perhaps you’ve never given yourself a chance. We needn’t scare you today. There’s nothing to fear. I promise.”

“I fear it all,” she says. “It’s as though I’m broken. It hurts me. It always hurts me.”

“You weren’t broken at Montfort. You were alive. I know I’m right about that, yes?”

She nods and feels tears quivering in the inside corners of her eyes. “I never cry. I detest women who cry. Why do I always cry with you?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and puts his arm about her. “But we won’t make you cry, no matter what. Or do anything that will make you sad. We’ll just be here together. Alone together! No one watching. No one interrupting us.”

She turns to take in his face. He is the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen. She reaches out and touches his glossy black mustache. Never once has it hurt her lips when he’s kissed her, as Teddy’s always has. And his cheekbones, so noble and high in color, as sweetly tinted as Duchesse de Brabant roses. His lower lip so strong, so masculine. Other women have come before her in his heart. Others will follow. She’s no fool. Morton will never love her as she loves him. But how beautiful, how freeing, to know she doesn’t care.

He cradles her face in his hands and kisses her lips so gently she barely feels it. And then he kisses her eyes, her nose.

“My love,” he says. “My darling.” His voice is lulling.

She feels so young before him. So untested. How absurd it is to be a forty-six-year-old woman with no experience. Why isn’t he laughing at her?

His lips trifle with the curl of her ear. “Do you know, you have the most beautiful ears. Like seashells.” She touches her ear with pleasure and feels herself blush.

“There’s some color in your cheeks again!” he says. “Now you’re here with me!”

Don’t miss this! Feel everything, she tells herself. And remember.

He removes his own jacket with a ceremonial seriousness, carefully places his shoes side by side under the chair by the desk, unfastens his pocket watch and sets it gently on the bedside table along with the crisp square of his white linen handkerchief. Then he goes about the business of unpeeling her layers. Madness that women should dress with such complexity! Like Valentine candy hiding beneath layers of ruffled papers.

“Can we draw the curtains?” she asks.

“And rob me of one of my greatest pleasures? Seeing you? No one can see us.”

“I’m afraid to be seen by you.”

“But you’re beautiful!” he says. When he’s managed with her help to remove her corset, he tenderly traces the red lines and welts of its cruel embrace with his fingers, “Poor love,” he says, then leans down and kisses her puckered flesh. “It’s cruel what we put women through. Men would never tolerate it. And for what? As though you’re not beautiful without it.”

Nearly naked now, she struggles to cover her breasts, so exposed in the dappled light. He has stripped her down to just her drawers. They are voile, refined and elegant, edged in Burano lace and fastened with mother-of-pearl buttons as tiny as a baby’s first fingernails. All these years of exquisite underwear and not one man has ever seen any of it.

She reaches up and slips the studs from his sleeves and shirt, aids in the removal of his collar and cuffs. He laughs. “Well, aren’t you helpful,” he says, hanging his shirt on the chair. When he strips off his thin jersey undervest, she discovers his chest is surprisingly broad and muscular, covered in dark curling hair. His nipples are as brown as walnuts. He lies down on the bed beside her, propping himself on his elbow to see her better.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” he says. “Of you. From the day we met.”

His words fall on her like water on a parched and dying plant. She feels herself leaning toward them, drinking every sweet drop.

“All I want,” he says, “is to make you feel marvelous. Do you understand?”

She nods.

“I hope you’ll feel things you’ve never felt. Wonderful things.”

“I just don’t know if I can . . .”

“Shhh . . .” He puts his fingers to her lips. “Anything that doesn’t feel wonderful, we won’t do, we won’t continue. If you don’t like anything, you’ll tell me.”

She laughs, for she feels like he is stating the rules before a game, the way they do before lawn tennis.

This is happening, she tells herself. This is really happening. No dream. No story conjured late at night alone in her bed. But a real moment, with his ticking watch on the bedside table, the sound of his breath, the dark perfect hairs on his wrist, the tiny scar on his cheek, the dot of black in his blue eye, the scent of lavender mixed with another more dusky sweetness. Her senses are heightened, thrilled by every detail. Will I remember? Will I remember? she wonders. When he leans down and kisses her, she feels it in layers. First, the sweetness of his lips, then the soft searching of his tongue, the weight of him, and at last, the extraordinary heat of his chest against her breasts.