No Touching
Page 16
EPILOGUE
Everything is clear, coming back like the memory of childhood, the taste of grandmother’s cooking, the scent of eau de Cologne, something intangible and yet indelible. I haven’t forgotten a single moment of what I experienced. Everything is the way it was before, though it all feels different without Fleur. But that’s what I want to remember the most. I’d fled the night, certain that in it lurked the ultimate offense, the risk of erasing what I’d learned elsewhere with so much effort. Sometimes it was like I could see all the books, filing past in front of me, that I’d absorbed and regurgitated with discipline, the degrees earned, the joys of the intellect, the love of knowledge, Pascal’s wager, the Soul, God, Beauty. Hadrien, too, had seemed like a very good reason to stop. But in the face of this clarity, another certainty, fierce and unalterable, took up residence inside me. The certainty that, weighed down with all my bookish knowledge, I had been living in ignorance. Ignorant of real experience, of deep emotion, of understanding of the human condition and of myself. Especially of myself. Before being anyone at all, I should have been Rose Lee.
I want to be Rose Lee. Queen or whore, it doesn’t matter, when the happiest moments of my life are spent here, nude, wearing the false eyelashes Poppy gave me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ketty Rouf has a master’s degree in philosophy, is a passionate ballet dancer, and after years working for the French Ministry of National Education is now a full-time translator, interpreter, and writer. No Touching is her debut novel.