Her Lover (55 page)

Jurioso
which unexpectedly faded into regal passages of
lusingandos
and lush expanses of
piangevole
as he reached out for an absolute of tenderness, his cheek nestling lovingly into his fiddle which yielded an aching, dying fall to which he listened with orgasmically closed eyes. 'Wake up, Imre, that's enough,' said Solal. He obeyed, though he could not quite stop his ringers from gently strumming the strings. 'Imre, you're a good fellow. I want you to know that I am about to run away with Madame.' The gypsy fiddler greeted the good news by letting his bow glide slowly and deliberately across the strings, then inclined his head to the fascinating lady. With his fiddle supported only by his clenched chin, he poked the ends of his iron-curled moustache with his bow and asked what was the noble lady's pleasure. 'Your most ravishing waltz,' said Solal. 'Your wish is my command!' said Imre. The fly in the ointment was that I couldn't hand over my little masterpiece to him personally at the Ritz, which is a pity, it would have cemented relations, but I could hardly disturb him, not when he was with his sultry lady, so I put. the summary and my comments in an internal envelope, wrote his name on the front, and sealed it with a gummed label marked 'Confidential', but just to be on the extra-safe side I didn't leave it in my out-tray, because VV sticks his nose into everything and would be quite capable of opening it to see what I was sending to the super-chief, 'Confidential' or not, or rather because of the 'Confidential', and equally capable of keeping it to himself, the swine, he's so jealous, anyway I'm not stupid, so I trotted along, looking as though butter wouldn't melt in my mouth, and quietly popped it into the chief's personal messenger's in-tray, chap named Saulnier, that way no one's the wiser and it's a cert that it won't be intercepted by his high and mightiness VV, I plead self-defence, m'lud. Impelled by the gravity of their desire, they orbited like stars. What kinds of trees were there on Cephalonia, asked this daughter of wealth, this consumer of nature's beauties. With a faraway look in his eye he reeled off the names of the trees he had so often recited to others, ran through the list of them: cypress-trees, orange-trees, lemon-trees, olive-trees, pomegranate-trees, citron-trees, myrtle-trees, mastic-trees. Reaching the limit of his knowledge, he went on, inventing lemonella-trees, tuba-trees, circass-trees, prune-trees and even puple-trees. Wonderingly she inhaled the vanilla-sweet fragrance of his miraculous forest. So tomorrow morning, phone to tell her to be sure to be nice to the chief if she ever bumps into him. 'Listen, darling, if the Kanakises ask you round to their place, which is more than likely since they now owe us an invite, and the chief happens.to be there, because Kanakis told me he was intending to ask him and the Greek ambassador, old Kanak's got his head screwed on the right way, don't you act grouchy with the chief, mind, talk to him a bit, talk to him a lot if you want, but for heaven's sake be nice, you can be very nice if you choose, because he treated me very decently, you know, I guarantee that this time next year I'll be an adviser.' The luck of the Irish, he smiled, and he peered benevolently at the mole just above his navel, then rolled himself into a ball on his narrow bunk, burying his face in his pillow, enjoying its smell and relishing the expense-account first-class sleeper now whisking him off towards official delights. On the dais, Imre was perspiring and pining with a will, while the second fiddle lobbed brief, servile, mechanical phrases which his leader proceeded to amplify gaudily, lifting his chin when he got to the thrilling moments. As she turned and whirled, she whispered that she'd have no time to buy summer dresses in Geneva, though on his island it would be very warm and, to be seen with a lord such as he, she'd have to change her dress at least twice a day. 'The dresses worn by peasant girls on Cephalonia will look just right on you,' he said. She gazed at him in admiration. This man knew everything, ironed out all problems with such ease. 'We shall buy three dozen,' he said. Thirty-six dresses, glory be! this man was surely great! 'What will our house be like?' she asked. 'White, by a purple sea,' he said, 'with an old Greek serving-woman to attend to everything.' 'To everything,' she said approvingly, and she clung to him.

Captivatingly clothed in grace, light as snow and slowly turning, she looked up once more to see herself dancing in the tall mirrors where she existed exquisitely, gazed up at the fair and beloved of her lord, so elegant in a peasant dress embroidered in red and black, attended by a kindly, barefoot, old Greek woman on an isle of delight girt with myrtle-, mastic- and circass-trees.

CHAPTER 37

On this night, their first night, together in the little sitting-room which she had so wanted to show him, they stood at the open window looking out over the garden, breathing the star-spattered night, listening to the softly stirring leaves of the trees which whispered their love. Hand in hand, the blood coursing creamily in their veins, they stared up at the glorious heavens, gazed up at their love enshrined in the pulsating stars which shone down blessings from on high. 'Always,' she murmured, awed by his presence in her very own room. And then, aiding and abetting her happiness, invisible upon its branch, a nightingale sang its wild entreaties, and she squeezed the hand of Solal so that they might both share the unseen piper now striving, contriving to proclaim their love. Suddenly it stopped and there was only the innumerable silence of the night and from time to time the vibrant whirr of a cricket.

Gently she freed herself and went to the piano, like a noble but absurd vestal, for she knew that she must play for him and sanctify with a Bach chorale this their first hour spent alone together. Seated before the black and white of the keys, she waited a moment, head bowed in honour of the music soon to be. Now that she had her back to him, he picked up a silver-handled mirror lying on the table, beheld the face of a man who was loved and smiled at him. Oh the perfect teeth of youth!

Oh sparkling teeth, oh joy to be alive, oh this young and loving woman and the tedium of her te deum offered as an oblation! Piously she played for him, her face aglow with faith, transfixed. On the stool as she played, her full hips swayed and swayed him, moved and moved him, for they were his, they were promised.

He watched her and he knew, reproved himself for knowing, knew that she was ashamed, though perhaps she was not fully aware of it, ashamed of having danced too close to him at the Ritz, ashamed of her ecstasy at the prospect of running off to the sea with him, and he knew that the moment they had entered her little sitting-room she had felt an obscure need to atone. There was atonement in the stargazing, the 'Always', the chaste squeeze of his hand so different from the Ritz where she had snuggled so close to him, in the respectful hearing given to that overpraised warbler the nightingale, cliche thou ever wert too, not bird. Atonement too in the chorale, which was designed to purify the surge of love, to infuse it with soul, to show her that she was brimful of soul so that she might taste the joys of the flesh without shame.

When the last chord had died away, she remained motionless on her stool, head bowed over the keys, honouring the sounds which had died away. After this bridging interval, which brought her from the celestial spheres back down to earth again, she turned to him and gave him her heart with a serious, almost imperceptible smile. She's not very bright, he thought. She stood up, but resisted an urge to sit by him on the faded silk of the sofa. Instead, she deposited her hindquarters in an armchair and sat expectantly, waiting for his comments on the chorale. In the garden, a nocturnal woodpecker took soundings. Solal said nothing, for he loathed Bach, and she put his silence down to an admiration too deep for words, and felt a thrill of pleasure.

Intimidated by the silence but also because he was tall and slim and so elegantly arrayed in white, she crossed her legs, pulled down the hem of her dress, struck and held a poetical pose. Darling girl, he thought, moved by her weakness and her pathetic attempts to please. Feeling awkward under her reverential gaze, he lowered his eyes. She gave a
start when she saw the scar. Oh she would kiss his eye, erase the hurt she had caused him and ask his forgiveness. She cleared her throat so that her voice would be pure and true. But he smiled at her, and she stood up.

Near to him at last, at last the flecks of gold so near, nestling at last in the haven of his shoulder, at last he held her. She drew back her head to see him more clearly, then brought her face closer, opened her lips like a flower in bloom, opened them reverently, with her head tilted back and eyes languishing, blissful and accessible, a saint in ecstasy. Goodbye chorale, goodbye nightingale, he thought. On solid ground now that she's got the soul routine out of her system, he thought, and he rebuked himself for harbouring this demon inside him. Oh yes, it was patently obvious, if he'd been four front teeth short there'd have been no enthralled' 'Always', no nightingale, no chorale. Or if teeth all present and correct but out of a job and in rags, again no 'Always' nor nightingale nor chorale. Nightingales and chorales were for the owning classes. But never mind, she was his true love, so hold your tongue and keep your damnable psychology to yourself!

On the sofa of faded silk, the sofa which had once belonged to Tantlérie, they tasted each other's sweetness, mouth on mouth, eyes closed, drinking long and deep, oblivious, assiduous, insatiable. At times she pulled away to see and know him, gazed at him in adoration with wild, staring eyes, and inwardly spoke two words of Russian to him, the language she had learned for love of Varvara which now enabled her to tell a man that she was his.
l
Tvoya zhena,'
she said to him in her heart of hearts as in her hands she held his stranger's face, then drew close and surrendered, while outside two cats raucously broadcast their love.'
Tvoya zhenaj
she said to him in her heart of hearts with each pause, each time they paused to draw breath, said it in her heart of hearts so that she might feel more deeply, more humbly, that she was his and dependent on him, feel it primitively, like a bare-foot peasant with the smell of earth in her nostrils, feel that she was his woman and his servant who from that very first moment had bent her head and kissed the hand of her man.
'Tvoya zhena?
and she surrendered again and they kissed, with the haste and fury of youth, in quick, repeated surges, or according to the unhurried rituals of love, and then they stopped, looked at each other and smiled, breathless, glowing, easy, and then came the questions, then began the
litany.

Sacred, obtuse litany, wondrous canticle, joy of poor human kind doomed to die, love's sempiternal two-voiced unison, the eternal love-duet which makes the earth to multiply. She told him over and over that she loved him. She asked him, for she knew the miraculous answer, asked him if he loved her. He told her over and over that he loved her. He asked her, for he knew the miraculous answer, asked her if she loved him. Love's first burgeoning, so tedious to others, so engrossing to those concerned.

Tirelessly crooning their duet, they declared their love for each other, and their banalities filled them with transports of delight. Closely embracing, they smiled, almost laughed aloud for joy, kissed then broke off to proclaim the wondrous tidings all too quickly confirmed by renewed collisions of lip and tongue in hungry exploration. Conjoined lips and tongues, the language of the young.

Those first moments of love, the kisses of those first moments, awesome chasms of their fate, oh those first embraces, there on this sofa handed down by generations of the stern and the dead, their sins tattooed upon their lips. The eyes of Ariane, her eyes now raised in reverence, her eyes now devoudy closed, and her unskilled tongue suddenly, marvellously proficient. She pushed him away so that she might look at him, her mouth still open though the kiss was done, to see and know him, see this stranger who was the only man in her life. 'I am your woman,
'tvoya zhena,'
she said falteringly, and if he made to break free she held him closer still. 'Never leave me,' she faltered, and they raised their cup to life, to their intertwined lives.

Those first moments. Oh kisses, oh pleasure found by the woman on the lips of the man, rising sap of youth, sudden truces, and they gazed at each other entranced, then, breaking the spell once more, kissed each other furiously, fraternally on cheeks, on forehead, on hands. Tell me, is this not God's doing?' she asked with a bewildered smile.

'Tell me, do you love me? Tell me you love only me. Tell me there is no one else,' she said, and she injected golden inflections into her voice to please him, to swell his love for her, and she kissed the stranger's hands, then laid her hands upon his shoulders and pushed him back, then sealed her adoration with a look of divinely sulky petulance.

Those first moments, this night of their first embraces. She yearned to break free of his embrace, go upstairs to her room, fetch gifts and lay them at his feet, but how could she bring herself to abandon him, abandon his eyes, abandon his dark lips? He held her, and because he held her so close it hurt, but it was such sweet hurt, and she told him once more that she was his woman. 'Your woman, your woman,' she said madly, proudly, while outside the nightingale resumed its fatuous serenade. Overwhelmed by the thought of being his woman, her cheeks lit up with tears. He kissed the tears on her cheeks. 'No, on the mouth,' she said, 'kiss me,' she said, and their mouths met in frenzy, and again she leaned back in his arms to adore him. 'My archangel, my fatal attraction,' she said, though she scarcely knew what she said, smiling, melodramatic, tawdry. I'll be your archangel and fatal attraction for as long as you want, he thought, but I cannot forget that you only talk of archangels and fatal attractions because I have thirty-two teeth. But I adore you, he thought immediately, and God be praised for my thirty-two teeth.

Those first moments. Kisses of youth, loving supplications, absurd and tedious petitioning. 'Tell me you love me,' he said, and, seeking a firmer purchase on her lips, he leaned on her, leaned on her thigh, and at once she brought her knees together, closing her knees in the presence of the male. 'Tell me you love me,' he said again, insistent with his crucial question. 'Yes, yes,' she answered, 'all I have to give you is a paltry yes,' she said, 'yes, yes, I love you as I had never hoped to love anyone,' she panted between kisses, and he inhaled her breath. 'Yes, darling, I love you. I love you yesterday, today and always, and it will always be today,' she said, husky-voiced, hare-brained, unhinged by love.