Pam Rosenthal (35 page)

They’re heavy. The neck of this nightdress is too loose, I can reach inside it. I can hold a breast in my hand. Yes, there’s a definite heft to it. And the veins are more prominent and bluer.

Is it my finger or yours now, that makes such small, precise circles around the dark spot surrounding the nipple? But that’s not so small either nowadays. It’s darker and wider, a kind of purplish brown, and the nipple is thicker, less girlish…would you think it pretty, I wonder?

I’m blushing now, scandalized by what I’ve written. If I don’t stop I shall probably throw this sheet of paper into the fire.

But in fact I must stop, for I hear Dr. Raspail. It’s time for his regular visit. He doesn’t esteem me very highly; he’s a bit offended to be treating a body that doesn’t have a title attached to it, though he couldn’t refuse the Marquise’s guest.

But though I lack a title, I still maintain certain standards. And chief among them is that I don’t want anyone examining me while I’m still at the mercy of your very dear gentle, and oh-so-provocative fingertip.

So I must compose myself. Breathe, Marie-Laure, as Madame Rachel never fails to insist. She’s Mademoiselle Beauvoisin’s mother, you know, and very wise and reassuring. Breathe slowly and deeply, she says.

And so, in and out, with every steady heartbeat, I breathe you.
Adieu
, Joseph. Be well. I love you.

Adieu.
Be well. I love you.

Marie-Laure

Confirming upon his first examination that she suffered from toxemia, Dr. Raspail had consigned her to total bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy.

“Keep a footman at her door,” he’d instructed the Marquise, “in case convulsions develop.”

He’d considered bleeding her as well. “But let’s start with medication and bed rest,” he decided, to Marie-Laure’s great relief. To relax her, he prescribed a draught of medicine, to be taken every morning and evening. It had opium in it, he said.

“And as for her keeping to her left side,” he added peevishly, “well, I don’t see what good it could do, but I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

“It offends him to defer to Mamma’s experience,” Mademoiselle Beauvoisin had explained, “but he’s prudent enough to take her advice into account, for he knows there isn’t a scientific explanation for your condition.”

In any case—and for whatever reason—the headaches and blurred vision had eased, and even sometimes disappeared for hours at a time.

Joseph replied the next week.

I was charmed and delighted by your letter,
mon amour,
but you must have more confidence in me. Yes, of course, I find that thicker less girlish nipple pretty—pretty! I’m quite beside myself. I held it in my hand all night. Kissed it, fondled it, flicked my tongue over it while you moaned and gasped. I flatter myself that you screamed with pleasure, and that together we made an absolute chaos of the bedclothes.

But then I realized I didn’t know how to envision our two bodies among that rat’s nest of sheets and pillows. For I’d imagined myself on top of you, and perhaps that isn’t comfortable for you any longer.

Yes, the more I think of it the surer I am. You must sit astride me, while I lie back and gaze at the belly that overwhelms me with pride and desire. And which you must describe to me.

If you’re able to, of course.

No, you must. I insist.

It’s not so bad, you know, for me to insist on things from time to time. For I was absolutely wrong last autumn not to insist that you come to Paris earlier. I love your independence and your stiff-necked shopkeeper’s pride, but you should have accepted assistance, Marie-Laure.

So now, I shall insist upon your describing yourself to me.

She nodded slowly.

Perhaps she
should
have accepted assistance. She’d have to work all that out later.

Right now, though, she had something very important to write.

It’s as big as a pumpkin, Joseph.

All right,
[she added]
I suppose even a nobleman knows that pumpkins come in all sizes. So I must be more precise.

A fifteen-pound pumpkin, then. Or a melon. A lovely big round prize winter squash with a sort of squash blossom poking out where my perfectly ordinary-looking navel used to be. Reminding me that the baby is similarly connected.

And reminding me of what I can’t do right now: move too much, or get too excited.

You, of course, should continue to imagine making me scream amidst a chaos of bed sheets.

But my imaginings must be quieter.

I’m still on my side; I lie curved around this astonishing belly. Come to bed, Joseph. Lie on your side, facing me.

Here’s my hand. I’m stroking your cheek. And now your mouth. Yes, you know what I’m doing. That’s right. Lick the palm of my hand. Get it very wet, ah yes just like that, so that when I touch you, when I wrap my hand around you, my hand will slide up and down the length of you.

Up.

Down.

And again, so many “agains.”

You’re harder now, so beautifully bowed and taut, and I’m moving my hand more quickly now, watching your jaw loosen, your eyes widen. What do you see at that moment, just before? I hope you see me, smiling proudly, laughing perhaps…

I have a very sticky hand now—no, I don’t know how to be more poetic here and even this is probably a bit too exciting for me and so once again I must only breathe you in and out…

Ah good. My supper is coming on a tray, and the distraction will probably help to calm me. I’ve become friends with the maid who brings it. Claudine is a very worldly Parisienne and thinks that I must be very good in bed to have attracted such a rich and handsome gentleman. I was shocked when she first told me that, but now I find it very amusing…

Arranging the dinner tray at Marie-Laure’s side, Claudine poured some fresh water with the tiniest bit of wine mixed in to sweeten it, and then gave an expectant little
ahem
.

For it was a Wednesday, and Claudine always spent her free Wednesday afternoons shopping.

“But what wonderful stockings, Claudine,” Marie-Laure exclaimed.

Claudine nodded modestly. “And what about this fichu?” she asked. “Look, the linen and stitching are almost as fine as what you’ll find on the rue Saint-Honoré. Well, it’s the details that matter, don’t you think?”

And Marie-Laure, thinking of the letter she’d written that afternoon, had to agree. It was always the details that mattered.

Ma belle
Cinderella with her pumpkin,

Less poetry is always better. I loved reading about your sticky hand, and spent some delightful minutes imagining you licking me off your sticky fingers.

Jeanne tells me that Madame Rachel has been rubbing almond oil into your skin where it’s been stretched by your growing belly, so that the marks will fade after the baby comes out. I wish I could do that. I’d warm my hands over a candle flame, and rub it in so slowly and carefully that you’d never want anyone else to do it. I’d measure your waist with my hands every morning; I’d discern the tiniest changes…and I’d lie quietly behind you, my lips pressed against the nape of your neck, my front curved around your back while you curve around this astonishing belly of yours.

And so you see what peaceable fancies I can have—while still (late at night) having the wildest, most wanton visions of you and me. For there are a few things we haven’t yet tried, you know. But I’ll save them. For the future. For our future…

But Joseph,
[she wrote back]
I’ve never told you that the baby kicks! I forgot, until Mademoiselle Beauvoisin reminded me, that you probably haven’t seen very many pregnant women, or very many babies, for that matter.

Anyway, if you put your hand on my belly, you can often feel it. It’s a dancer, it’s an acrobat, a fencer—it will be as graceful and light-footed as its papa.

Mon amour,

Can someone have erotic fancies when he’s trying his best to imagine being called “Papa”?

And can someone imagine being called “Papa” when he’s spent his life being a scamp, a scapegrace, an
enfant terrible
?

Well, he can try. And I am, I am.

But since I once chastised you for your excess of responsibility, I can hardly, in fairness, not confess to my own sins. And not just of impulsiveness, or hypersensitivity, or all the absurdities of my libertine life. But of something else I don’t quite understand.

I feel that somehow I brought this imprisonment on myself. Yes, I know it’s absurd, but I can’t lose the feeling. And not because of anything I did to the Baron Roque, for I had nothing whatsoever to do with his death.

Perhaps it’s just my fears—or my guilt for leaving you at the chateau. But I don’t think so. I truly believe that there’s something I should be remembering. Or dreaming, perhaps. Something that will tell me what I need to know.

I shall try to dream then. I shall go to bed and bring your letters with me. And I shall bring you too. You that first day in the barn, with rays of sunlight slanting onto your hair and your little pink tongue darting out of your mouth—I was breathless, thrilled, and almost mortally astonished that anyone could be so brave and so shy at the same moment. And you as you are now—formidable breasts and luscious belly—but, I dare to imagine, still the same bright hair and pink tongue and ah, the same determined mouth.

Lie down on your side—there, you needn’t strain. I’ve covered your breasts and belly with kisses and now I’m putting my arms around you. Holding you, rocking you, our lips opening and tongues meeting.

But you must imagine what you want to imagine. I won’t share what I’m thinking this time; take whatever you need of me, Marie-Laure, be it pleasure or comfort or simply—whatever else happens—my undying love.

Joseph

Whatever else happens.

She read the letter so many times in the next few days that it was beginning to fray
along the folds.

It wasn’t quite coherent. But how could it be? The truth was that he and she—each in a different way—were in mortal danger. And yet they’d shared earnest hopes, pretty thoughts, and overwhelming desire. Nothing made a whole lot of sense in such a situation; she wasn’t surprised that he was plagued with muddled, nonsensical fancies about there being something he needed to remember. She folded the letter and put it back under her pillow, rearranged herself carefully on her left side, and fell into a troubled sleep.

She dozed fitfully, plagued by dreams. She was running along the path by the river, but a tangle of vines—or were they serpents?—threatened to bar her way. She had to keep going, though, because a pack of baying hounds were trying to get at her—horrid dogs, with Monsieur Hubert among them. She could feel her pursuers’ hot breath; the hounds were tearing at her clothes with dripping fangs. She was helpless, naked now, and someone was leading her—where?

She forced herself back to sweaty, gasping consciousness. Her head still ached; she was weak and shaky. But when she lit the candle at her bedside she was surprised that her vision was clear. In fact, everything was preternaturally clear and distinct, the colors deeply saturated.

She could pull the bell cord at the side of her bed and bring the footman running. But she really felt more strange than bad. So she lay quietly on her side for the next few hours, forcing herself to breathe slowly and evenly, until daylight stole under the bottoms of the heavy curtains and Claudine appeared with her breakfast.

She wasn’t hungry, but the coffee smelled good. Pulling herself to a more upright position, she suddenly felt…wet.

“Please,” she whispered, “please, I think you’d better call somebody. I feel…well, I feel very odd.”

She paused.

“I think…” she began. And then she smiled. “No, I’m
sure
that was a contraction, and that the baby’s coming.”

The contractions were weak, but the baby was undeniably on its way.

Dr. Raspail looked solemn: a six-week-early baby might not be entirely prepared to eat and breathe on its own. But there was no stopping the inevitable, and nothing he could do until her labor was more advanced. He’d return, he said, in a few hours, after visiting a dropsical prince in the faubourg Saint-Germain.

“It might be a blessing,” Mademoiselle Beauvoisin suggested. “Perhaps the baby is wise to leave before the toxemia gets any worse.”

Marie-Laure sat flanked by the actress and her mother. Madame Rachel was a small, silent, faded woman with endless knowledge of the mysterious processes underway.