to express, and so offering her his absolute trust at its most tender and troubled, his heart laid bare in the cup of his outstretched, trembling hands.
“Of course you don’t,” she said with conviction.
But, she thought, her throat tightening, suppose your mother more than deserves your love and you don’t let her have it, suppose you keep it all to yourself, what to think of a person like that? If you’re ashamed of your mother and keep her as far out of your life as you can, what kind of person are you then?
She found herself envying his certainty that he didn’t have to love his parents, not to mention the fact that there were two of them, supporting each other in their meanness. She then had a vision so brief that she didn’t have time to be outraged or aggrieved, but the feeling persisted darkly inside her after she’d forgotten where it came from: the vision of a Clarisse grown old, with no one left to support her in her meanness, whose children never visited, all too aware of what she was.
“My parents are dead, and in any case my father never came forward,” she answered in an ugly squawk that surprised and shocked even her.
He let out a sad little “Oh,” then briefly and tenderly put his hand on her thigh. His fingers were short, but it was a strong, well-shaped hand, and Clarisse gently clasped it and pressed it to her lips, feeling she’d known that hand for a very long time and could at this very moment, without hesitation or effort, lick every one of its fingers, give them delicate little bites.
“Clarisse isn’t exactly my real name, but that’s what they call me,” she managed to add.
He parked in a little street on the edge of Langon, before an old gray stucco house, whose upper floor he rented.
The street lay empty and silent in the warm, bright afternoon sun. Cats were sleeping in the shadowy corners by the entryways, and suddenly Clarisse remembered the courtyard of her childhood, the cats much like these, scruffy and thankless, that sometimes came begging for food, and her mother’s inexplicable fear of them, almost as deep as her fear of dogs, on the subject of which she’d one day let slip that beneath their skin they contained human beings stricken with a terrible curse. How could anyone believe such a thing? But Clarisse avoided them all the same, and that day she was vaguely unhappy to find a cat sleeping on the house’s front step.
She took off her high heels and climbed the stairs barefoot before the boy. Already it felt just like coming home after a few days’ vacation!
He had a big room on the upper story, just under the roof, tidy and white, with a waxed wooden floor. He took her to a window and pointed out the river, sparkling and very green between two houses, and the white sunlight, as if bleached, erased by its own brightness.
Then they stood face-to-face, not yet daring to embrace but knowing they would, and waiting for that moment with a fervent, solemn emotion, and a patient one as well, because, thought Clarisse evasively, they knew that moment was at hand, and they were lost in proud surprise at what they’d already done, running off together far from Bordeaux, and now knew they would soon take each other in their arms and pull each other close, and they waited, dazed with love, fear, and joy.
How young they were! thought Clarisse, and she felt a reverence for their youthfulness.
A dim memory briefly came back to her, a night spent with a coworker at Le Rainbow who took her to his place while his wife was away, with whom she’d made love for the first time, quietly aware that she wanted only to cast off her virginity, which she then saw, she no longer quite understood why, as a burden, and she’d set her sights on that friendly man on the theory that he’d know what to do. And it was fast, cold, and conscientious, like an expertly performed operation. And now, before this boy she loved, she was happy to have it behind her.
She saw his high
“Of course you don’t,” she said with conviction.
But, she thought, her throat tightening, suppose your mother more than deserves your love and you don’t let her have it, suppose you keep it all to yourself, what to think of a person like that? If you’re ashamed of your mother and keep her as far out of your life as you can, what kind of person are you then?
She found herself envying his certainty that he didn’t have to love his parents, not to mention the fact that there were two of them, supporting each other in their meanness. She then had a vision so brief that she didn’t have time to be outraged or aggrieved, but the feeling persisted darkly inside her after she’d forgotten where it came from: the vision of a Clarisse grown old, with no one left to support her in her meanness, whose children never visited, all too aware of what she was.
“My parents are dead, and in any case my father never came forward,” she answered in an ugly squawk that surprised and shocked even her.
He let out a sad little “Oh,” then briefly and tenderly put his hand on her thigh. His fingers were short, but it was a strong, well-shaped hand, and Clarisse gently clasped it and pressed it to her lips, feeling she’d known that hand for a very long time and could at this very moment, without hesitation or effort, lick every one of its fingers, give them delicate little bites.
“Clarisse isn’t exactly my real name, but that’s what they call me,” she managed to add.
He parked in a little street on the edge of Langon, before an old gray stucco house, whose upper floor he rented.
The street lay empty and silent in the warm, bright afternoon sun. Cats were sleeping in the shadowy corners by the entryways, and suddenly Clarisse remembered the courtyard of her childhood, the cats much like these, scruffy and thankless, that sometimes came begging for food, and her mother’s inexplicable fear of them, almost as deep as her fear of dogs, on the subject of which she’d one day let slip that beneath their skin they contained human beings stricken with a terrible curse. How could anyone believe such a thing? But Clarisse avoided them all the same, and that day she was vaguely unhappy to find a cat sleeping on the house’s front step.
She took off her high heels and climbed the stairs barefoot before the boy. Already it felt just like coming home after a few days’ vacation!
He had a big room on the upper story, just under the roof, tidy and white, with a waxed wooden floor. He took her to a window and pointed out the river, sparkling and very green between two houses, and the white sunlight, as if bleached, erased by its own brightness.
Then they stood face-to-face, not yet daring to embrace but knowing they would, and waiting for that moment with a fervent, solemn emotion, and a patient one as well, because, thought Clarisse evasively, they knew that moment was at hand, and they were lost in proud surprise at what they’d already done, running off together far from Bordeaux, and now knew they would soon take each other in their arms and pull each other close, and they waited, dazed with love, fear, and joy.
How young they were! thought Clarisse, and she felt a reverence for their youthfulness.
A dim memory briefly came back to her, a night spent with a coworker at Le Rainbow who took her to his place while his wife was away, with whom she’d made love for the first time, quietly aware that she wanted only to cast off her virginity, which she then saw, she no longer quite understood why, as a burden, and she’d set her sights on that friendly man on the theory that he’d know what to do. And it was fast, cold, and conscientious, like an expertly performed operation. And now, before this boy she loved, she was happy to have it behind her.
She saw his high
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