Books Of Prose

Chapter 1

Marianna can see Patrice walking naked about the room. He thinks she’s asleep and doesn’t dare wake her. Marianna looks at him through closed lids. In his fine clothes he looks more assured. He’s still a little shy. She rolls over onto her stomach, turning her back on him, crossing her arms under her cheek on the soft pillow. Patrice, that fascinating man, formal and restrained, a brilliant conversationalist, with a great sense of humor, is walking around unclothed, waiting for me, she thinks.

When Marianna wakes again, Patrice is no longer in the room. She cannot remember when she fell asleep, it seems she fell asleep with him, next to him. She looks around the room. It is impossible to see the wide stone balcony from the bed, but the gray light comes in through the large window. No sun again, thinks Marianna. I hoped there would be in the afternoon. Maybe there was and I was asleep?

Her body is spread out comfortably under the blanket. He leaves dents like a rubber stamp, signs of his weight on the sheet. The air-conditioning in the room is working overtime. The air is dry air. It’s hot. Stifling. She puts her feet down on the linoleum floor and goes to open the balcony window. Her feet, still plunged in sleep, touch the rough edge of the concrete. She can see the city rooftops. Grayish-white industrial towers amid a forest of red-tiled roofs, from right to left. The sky is low. No clouds. The whole huge sky is like one continuous cloud.

Marianna goes back and sinks again into the pleasant warmth of the bed. She hears the familiar sound of the door scrape across the floor. Patrice’s dark red overcoat is open. His yellow scarf is draped around his neck. He enters the room and comes up to her. Marianna can feel the dampness of outside. The wind mixed with the smells of the street: the smoke and soot from the cars, the aroma of food, Patrice’s cigar and a little alcohol.

“You bought a new scarf?”

“No. It’s an old one. I found it in the closet.”

“It’s an excellent match! What a lovely color! It looks very nice on you.”

“Thank you”.

Patrice gives a small smile with his small mouth. An almost invisible smile

Marianna sits up, leaning back against the large pillow. She draws her long, rounded arms out from under the blanket

Patrice sits on the bed facing Marianna. He stretches his arm towards her face, the sleeve of his woolen overcoat, wide and thick, rests on the shoulders of her nightdress and touches Marianna’s bare shoulder.

“You’ve been asleep since two, did you know?”

“And now?”

“It’s six.”

“Wow!”

Marianna hugs herself, rubbing her arms with the palms of her hands, as though trying to get rid of the pleasant crust of sleep.

“I’m hot.” Patrice stands up.

Marianna can see his back, his short neck and the gray top of his head. His round shoulders droop inwards. With every step he throws his feet forwards and to the sides. He thrusts them ahead of his body and his shoulders dance along behind, like a lid thrown onto a pot by an experienced, nonchalant cook. The lid always falls precisely into place with a neat clink.

Patrice goes up to the hanging space for clothes in the entrance and takes off his overcoat and his scarf. He goes back to Marianna and sits down again in the same place. Facing her. Close.

“Did you sleep well?”

He looks well packaged in his black shirt. Even without a tie he seems soigné.

“Yes,” says Marianna. “That shirt looks very nice on you. Such a simple shirt. How is it you manage to look elegant even in pajamas!”

Patrice strokes the collar of his shirt with palm of his large hand. The collar is neatly folded back. It did not crease under the overcoat. His hand rises and touches the remaining hair at the sides of his head, thin and graying. Carefully, with concern.

“Tomorrow, before I take the plane, I want to visit David,” says Patrice.

“Will you drive to St. Cloud and come back? Or will you go there via Roissy? It’s a very long way round. It will take you all morning!”

“I know.” He is not happy that Marianna has reminded him of his weakness.

“I should have had a haircut last week, but because of the trip to Strasbourg I didn’t manage it. And now, if I don’t have a haircut before I go, it will be two weeks. I know it’s idiotic, but I think he cuts my hair well.”

“He cuts your hair very well and besides, you’re used to him and feel confident.”

“What has it got to do with confidence?” he stands up and walks about.

Marianna remains silent. She wants to get up after him, to take his hand, usually so quiet and self-assured. To embrace, to reassure. But such a move might seem too dramatic and she doesn’t feel like getting out of bed.

“I wanted us to go and visit Claude and Pascal,” says Patrice. “I was waiting for you to wake up.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s too late, I think.”

“You know, I dreamt, or maybe I thought, you were meeting some woman or other … you had gone to meet her in the café on the corner, the one where there’s always music… you know.”

“Actually I did go to the café on the corner.” Patrice turns towards her, startled. The skin of his face grows pale, with no blush. He looks tired, thinks Marianna, a persistent tiredness, that may not go away.

“Yes?”

“I waited for you to wake up and in the end I gave up. I went down to sit around for a while…”

“Yes…ugh… what a bad dream.”

“There area lot of people there, all talking in loud voices. You know, on se croit à Marrakech ici… »

“Yes. You always say that. I’ve never been to Marrakech. But the looks of the men here are just like they are in Tel Aviv.”

”I like sitting there sometimes, in that café. They may be crude and noisy among themselves but they are very nice to me. None of them bother me, with all their noise and music.”

“Yes, the tradesmen have learnt. They are very courteous with me too. They don’t stare. They say politely: “Bonjour, mademoiselle! Vous désirez, mademoiselle? Bonne journée, madame!” Just like the French in town. Maybe with them it sounds a little less smooth, less mielleux as you would say.”

“It’s a matter of structure, you know. Their jaws are bigger and wider, so their voices sound lower and thicker. Like the stallholders in the market in Jerusalem.”

“I can walk around quite freely in town”, Marianna ignores his gibe, “without anyone lusting after my rear. It’s only in Montreuil that it recurs. Al the way from the Métro their looks stick to my ass. But somehow or other, it’s annoys me less here than in Tel Aviv. Sometimes it’s even pleasant. Something familiar.”

“I know. There are women whose one dream is that someone should lust after their rear. But not you. You want to be sitting on it in a car.”

“Yes. I’m protected in a car: sitting on my ass, what can anyone do. No one can see it and fix their eyes on it… Besides, I don’t have a car any more.” She is serious.

“Marianna, please. Again?”

“Yes. I left my car with Shmuel, in Petach Tikva Street, on the corner of Aluf Sadeh.”

”Yes, in that stinking place, full of shouts and people’s smelly sweat.”

“In a car”, Marianna continues her own thought, “there is always distance between me and them, they cannot get so close that you are aware of their smell.”

“Why not, sometimes in Tel Aviv you can…anyway, are you getting up or are we staying here?” Patrice gives a tired smile and takes hold of her soft pony tail, pulling it sharply down.

“Hey!” Marianna is startled. Her head is thrown back. She lets herself go and pulls him forwards. His large body goes with her and they curl up together on the bed. “Aren’t you worried about your well-tailored appearance?” Marianna’s voice filters through his neck, stretched backwards.

She resists. It hurts. The strength in the neck. The neck, a soft, vulnerable part of the body, has become strong, dominant. She is not complaining.

He desists. Suddenly. She waits. He throws the upper part of his body over her and buries his face in the middle of her body, warm and replete with the smell of sleep. Marianna can see the nape of his neck. The gray hairs on the back of his neck. She bends over him , takes the hairs between her lips and pulls.

“Mm…” Patrice mumbles, “that’s not nice”.

“I want to bite you a little… may I?”

“No.”

“Please. Just a little.”

Silence.

Marianna carefully opens her mouth and gathers a little skin between her teeth. But not yet any flesh. Gently. Patrice does not resist. But Marianna knows this is all she may do. She restrains herself.

“When will I find the man of my dreams? Someone who likes to be bitten?!” she sighs.

Patrice rolls over on the bed, his arms spread out beside him. It’s strange to see him stretched out like that, in his clothes on the unmade bed. His feet, in their quality leather shoes, are hanging over the edge of the bed. His trousers are rucked up a little above the foot, revealing his slender legs.

“And who is she? Do you know?” asks Patrice, without looking at Marianna.

“Who?”

“The one you dreamed about?”

“Ah. No… um…yes… she had dark hair…”

“Une brune… une française… une parisienne… une vraie parisienne … can a brunette be a genuine Parisian?” Patrice is joking.

“Mm… yes… sometimes…” says Marianna, trying to concentrate on the figure she saw in her dream. “Yes, sort of slim, talks very quickly, without stopping. Not pretty.”

”Not pretty?”

“She looks like Bernard’s assistant, in your office.”

“Claude?”

“Um…” Marianna gives a slow, thoughtful affirmative reply. “I think so.”

“Claude is not pretty?”

“Not very. She’s not plain, but…” She turns over on the bed and stretches out next to Patrice. She sneaks a little closer to him. “Do you like her? Claude?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

“She’s quick and clever, full of vitality and self-confidence.” The scent of Patrice assails her body. A delicate scent of perfumed washing powder mixed with the odor of a cigar. A smell of cleanliness and good taste, de bonne qualité.

Her leg alights carelessly just below Patrice’s diaphragm, on a soft spot. She feels the turn quite well, as though her pelvis were the axis of a weathervane. It’s nice rumpling his dazzling clothes. He doesn’t object. Her nightdress lifts and the air touches her two buttocks which come into view a little.

Patrice strokes her foot and gathers up her long toes as if they were a cake. Her foot is a round waffle shaped like a tube and Marianna’s toes are the cream filling. He suddenly pulls her to one side, as though he wants all the cake for himself, with hunger, with appetite. But Marianna is too heavy for him to be able to turn her over like this, in one movement, without her co-operation. She just wobbles, like a heap of soft, quivering dough. She rises above him on her elbows. Patrice slips his cold hand between her body and his and clutches her genitals, gathers them in his fist. Marianna laughs.

“Just don’t hurt me.”

“You’re all wet, you know?”

“No. It’s just from sleeping” she replies.

“Come on top of me” says Patrice, holding her under the armpit and pulling her up, over his face.

Her body is heavy and she finds it hard to move, but drags herself wearily over him. His face is between her thighs.

She can see the crumpled sheet in front of her, the metal frame of the bed and Patrice’s favorite picture on the wall. She has never understood what he finds in it: gray, a chair and the shoulders of a young woman emerging from the mist. Beautiful, relaxed shades of color, but somehow bland. Not forceful.

The weight of her body moves on to her shoulders, supported by her arms. Her wrist makes an effort to hold on. She arches her back in pleasure, and also a little playfully, making things hard for Patrice’s mouth, which is groping for her vulva. He pursues her until her wrist hurts and her hands turn blue.

“I’m going to fall, Patrice” she manages to say and falls sideways, pulling him after her.

I’m fully awake, thinks Marianna. She tries to steady her breathing. I shall stay like this. without moving, for maybe a year.

She is waiting for Patrice, who has gone to take down his well-pressed clothes and put them away tidily, after his fashion. He always finds time for that, even when there is no time, thinks Marianna. It’s taking him too long, soon I won’t feel like it at all. She turns onto her side and waits. She can see the frame of the bed again, the picture and the line between the wall and the ceiling, and the small spots of whitewash. It must be rough to the touch, she thinks. She can feel Patrice’s soft flesh making contact with the space between her buttocks. The line of his body matches, follows the line of her back. Like two parallel curves.

“You know, Sylvie says: how can you stay with a man who is away all the time, who is abroad all the time and you have no idea what he is up to there…?”

“What does that mean, you have no idea?” Patrice sticks his chin in the hollow between her neck and her shoulder.

“It means you don’t know who he is with there, when he is not next to you.”

”And what did you say?”

She turns over. Her face is opposite his. Her hands are resting against his wide shoulders, which seem to stretch, a single surface, all the way to his nipples, that shifts in one great, heavy movement, all together. With no partial movements. Just like the wide drawer of a closet that opens in a single movement, with no break.

“I said to her: and when Roland leaves the house in the morning and comes back in the evening, what do you know about what he is doing, and where he is, and who with?”

“Yes…” Patrice is still embracing her, but his grip is weakening.

“And she of course said: what’s the matter with you? What are you talking about? That’s not the same thing at all!”

“I hope you didn’t try to persuade her any further…” Patrice’s eyes take on that sorrowful-tired look of theirs, of a sad dog, a good dog. They almost seem to squint.

“No. But I said to myself: actually, it does bother me sometimes…”

“Until now you have always said that you like it when I am away a lot, that you have a lot of time to yourself.”

“Yes. That too. But still. Somehow, lately, when you’re not around, it’s hard for me to be here.”

“I’ve always thought you need a job where there are more people, something more alive.” Patrice lets go of her and turns round.

“Perhaps.”

“As it is, you’re alone in the house all the time. That must be the reason for this feeling of yours.”

“Perhaps. Yes… I seem to be working in some secret place, some hideaway. In the end, I have no idea what they are using and what not, and why, and whether it’s good or not good. No one talks to me. It’s like working in the dark.”

They are lying side by side, their faces to the ceiling.

“Can’t you talk to Sylvie?” Patrice clasps his hands behind his head, enjoying the comfort of the bed.

“Sylvie makes no difference…” Marianna replies immediately. “She doesn’t have much influence. Apart from which, you know, I wouldn’t be able to work for any other publishing house.”

“Maybe you can try again? You have more experience now.”

“Perhaps. But I still think it happens to me when you’re not here. You know, that time when you were on that long trip to Australia, I thought of going back to Tel Aviv. I couldn’t take it any more. You would come back and not find me. I wouldn’t be here any more.”

“And…”

“I may do it on one of your long trips. Not this one. This is only for a week, right?”

“Six days.” Patrice is listening with full attention.

“A long trip in the future, and I’ll be gone.”

“I didn’t know that this was how you felt.”

“In general, I think I want to go back.”
“Do you want me not to travel?…” Patrice lets the sentence emerge slowly from his lips, in order to make a statement. “You know it’s impossible,” he adds at once.

“I know. But you always say you hate it. Here now’s your chance.”

“Marianna, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll be back by the end of the week, on Saturday. We can talk then.”

“Are you banking on the fact that my mood may have changed?”

“Perhaps. That too.”

“Aren’t you afraid of coming back and not finding me here?”

“Yes. But you yourself say that that happens on my long trips.”

“Yes. But maybe this time it will be different.

“Oh-la-la! How complicated you are! … Let’s agree that you’ll come and meet me at Roissy when I come back, on Saturday.”

“How will I get to Roissy without a car?”

“I don’t have to return the car to the office. Would you like that?”

“Yes.” Marianna replies without hesitation.

“You’ll come?”

“Yes. Okay.”

Translation: Eddie Levenstone