Last Lovers

by William Wharton

  ‘My eyes are deeper and my brow more prominent than many men’s, Mirabelle. But most men are somewhat like that. Also, not all women have faces as gentle and soft as yours. I think it might be because you have been blind and protected. You do not have the hardness in your face so many women have.’

  She has her hands on both sides of my forehead now, gently tracing the lines above my brow. Her fingers follow the paths from one end to the other, each hand playing counterpoint to the other, the fingers moving independently. Only a blind person or a musician could have such a lightness of touch, independence of hand movement, and Mirabelle is both. Sometimes she rests her hands, her fingers, so deftly on me I can almost not tell they are there, except for the dry coolness of them.

  She runs her fingers up into my hair. I’m lucky I have most of my hair. Baldness doesn’t seem to run in my family. It’s turning gray, marching up the side of my head from my ears and downward into my beard. I wonder if Mirabelle will be able to tell these gray hairs in my beard from the pubic-type hardness of the other hairs in my beard.

  Her hands, her fingers, gently push through my hair, pulling my scalp slightly. It feels very calming, comforting.

  ‘You have such lovely hair, Jacques, and it is cool, cooler than the rest of your face. I like very much the way it feels. It is like water and flows between my fingers.’

  ‘Your hands in my hair feel wonderful to me, too. You are very gentle.’

  She brings her hands down the side of my head to my ears, her fingers first running along the outside crest around to the lobes and under them. She does the same thing simultaneously on each of my ears with her hands. To do this, she is lying across me.

  She explores the insides of my ears with her tender fingertips, tracing the whorls as the ear swirls down to the orifice. Now this is beginning to excite me. I have very sensitive ears. I feel a stirring but try to ignore it. I concentrate on the sensation as sensation and not as sexual stimulation. After all, it is only my ears.

  ‘But, Jacques, you have even more ear hairs than nose hairs. Are you sure you can hear? Don’t you ever try to cut these hairs out of your ears? When I feel any hairs like this on me, I cut them off. Don’t you care for yourself?’

  She’s like a mother. I find myself settling down.

  ‘I guess I’m just not careful enough, Mirabelle. But then you must remember, I’ve been living in the streets or in my attic. There wasn’t much time to cut hair out of my nose or ears, and I didn’t have a mirror.’

  ‘That is not an excuse; I cut my hairs off and I cannot see. Soon I shall cut the hairs out of your ears. You need not worry. I shall not cut you. I am very good with scissors. Remember, I live on the rue des Ciseaux.’

  I reach up and put my hands over hers. I slowly pull them away from the side of my head and in front of my face. I kiss the tips of each of her fingers, holding them tightly together, as in prayer, between mine.

  ‘Now I think we should go to sleep, Mirabelle. We have much work to do tomorrow when all the materials arrive. They told me the delivery would be at nine o’clock, so it should arrive after breakfast. I’ll run, you can do your yoga and exercise, then I will start to prepare this room to work in it. Do you have a ladder? I’ll need one.’

  ‘Yes, I think there is a ladder in the cave. There are also some tools you might be able to use.’

  With that, she leans over and kisses me quickly and very lightly on the lips. She stands up.

  ‘It wasn’t so bad, was it? I feel I know you much better. You are really even more handsome than I thought you would be.’

  She turns and leaves the room. After about five minutes pondering in the dark, I go to sleep.

  Blind Reverie

  We are so close when we work together, I feel I know exactly what Jacques is doing, what he wants me to do. We become as one.

  But what must he think of the way I want my bedroom to be? It is so childish, at the same time, wanton, the bedroom of a whore. I know he knows it is what I want and he will make it that way for me. He can help me feel like a queen, a much loved queen.

  And then when we were in the Place Furstenberg and he made me feel he was painting my Place, the Place of my dreams. He can be so like a child himself. I suspect that is part of what makes him an artist, what makes me love him so. In a way, we are like two children playing.

  I must be careful not to be too arrogant, too sure-sounding in my description of these personal worlds in which I live. He must not feel I am seeing his blindness. But no, there is nothing of that; I can feel it in our vibrations, our nearness.

  It was so wonderful touching his face, feeling the hardness of his skin, the lovely curves of his nose, his ears, his mouth. The bulk, the strength of his body under mine made me almost want to cry, cry in happiness.

  9

  The delivery from BHV comes right on time. I’ve had a good run, bathed, and we’re just finishing our coffee when Mirabelle stops and lifts her head.

  ‘I hear strange footsteps on the stair. Perhaps the delivery from the BHV store is here.’

  I can scarcely believe it. France is not notorious for delivering on time. But there they are. I open the door and a man in blue coveralls presents a bill of lading. I look it over and it checks with the prices I have, so I tell them to bring up the load. I give the bill of lading to Mirabelle and tell her how much the check should be written for. There’s no delivery charge.

  I don’t haul the things up with them, because I want to inspect everything as it arrives, to make certain it’s all there, and that it’s the color and quality I ordered. It all squares out okay. I give the two guys ten francs as a pourboire and they stomp off down the stairs again.

  After that, I go with Mirabelle into the cave, a kind of basement storage area. She takes keys from the key board by the door, goes down the stairs, and I follow her.

  ‘It has been many many years since I have been down here. Before she went into a maison de retraite, the concierge gave me these keys. One opens the door to the caves, the other is to our particular cave.’

  She turns back to me on the stair and holds out the keys.

  ‘I believe the number of our cave is on this tab.’

  I follow her along a dark corridor to a door at the end. I switch on a light. There’s a steep, stone, twisting staircase down into the cave. I search along the wall until I find the wooden door with the same number as the key. I insert the huge key and the lock turns rustily. Mirabelle stands beside me.

  I find a ladder, a self-standing one, with eight steps, rather than rungs; it’s made of wood. These days, they’re just about all aluminum. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wooden ladder quite like this. The wood is oak and sturdy, so it’s heavy. I also find a box of rusty tools. I pick out a claw hammer, a mason’s hammer, a pair of rusty pliers that still open and close, two screwdrivers with wooden handles, a small saw, also rusty, and a scraper. There are some fascinating tools in that box including wooden planes and calipers of all sizes. I won’t have any use for anything like that. At least I hope not. I wonder who ever did; they don’t seem the kind of tools one would use in doing reliure.

  ‘These are the tools of my father, Jacques. I do not think anyone has touched them since he left for the war. My goodness, it smells like a tomb down here. I had forgotten that. Before she left, the concierge would often bring up bottles of Rolande’s wine to me. See them there. Now, with both of us drinking the wine, my supply upstairs is almost depleted. Perhaps another time we can bring up more. But now please let us go upstairs again where there is fresh air and warmth.’

  I shoulder the ladder and pick up some tools I’ve separated onto the floor of the cave. This ladder is a brute. I watch as Mirabelle feels her way up the steep curving steps. When I go through the door, I turn to lock it. I shift the ladder and start up the stairs. At the first turn I realize I can’t get the ladder around holding it under my arm. I’ll need to use both arms, and hold it vertically. I put the tools down carefully against t
he wall on the step.

  ‘Mirabelle, watch for the tools. I’ve put them on the left of the step, the sixth step from the bottom.’

  ‘Thank you. I could hear you putting them down. You are having trouble getting the ladder around the corner, is that right?’

  ‘That’s right, Mirabelle. I need both arms to pull it up.’

  I straighten the ladder. Closed tight, and stood vertically, it goes up just fine. I work it along till I get to the door. It’s latched. I hope Mirabelle has the key. I completely forgot to bring mine. She comes up behind me; she has the tools. She puts them down on the floor and reaches into her tablier, a kind of apron she wears, and pulls out the key. She walks past me to open the door. I go in past her.

  ‘You didn’t need to carry up the tools, Mirabelle. I was going right back down to get them.’

  ‘It was a pleasure for me, Jacques. It was something I could do. You cannot know how much pleasure it gives me being able to help. There is so little I can do in the real world.’

  Once I get started, I work all through the day. I only take a break for lunch. Mirabelle wants me to go out and paint in the afternoon but I’m caught up in the project. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to take a place and really work on it till it becomes the way you want it. I haven’t done work like this since we lived in the little house by the South Street Bridge in Philly.

  Mirabelle goes out to feed and care for her pigeons but she’s back long before the bells ring.

  ‘Do you mind if I stay while you work? It gives me great joy to hear you scraping and hammering. I try to figure from the sounds just what you are doing.’

  ‘Please do stay, Mirabelle. I like your company. I’ll try to tell you what I’m doing as I go along. But won’t your pigeons be disappointed? I don’t want to steal time from them.’

  ‘Oh, Jacques. I know you do not like my pigeons. Please do not make fun of me.’

  ‘No, seriously. The more I know you and the more I think about it, the more I realize I was wrong about pigeons before. I didn’t respect them for what they are, how they are so wonderfully innocent, trusting, tolerant. Maybe it comes from my working so long at MBI. There, they only value cleverness, competition, getting ahead. I really think I actually am learning from your pigeons the way you said I would. But even more, I’m learning from you, Mirabelle.’

  She’s silent, standing there and smiling at me, a genuine guru smile, something I normally can’t stand. I know she’s happy. She probably thinks I’m just saying this to please her, but this is true. It’s part of the whole change I can feel coming over myself. She breaks the magic moment.

  ‘If there is some way I can help you with this work, only ask me. I would like that very much.’

  When she says it, I think it’s simply a nice gesture, but when I start gluing the acoustic tiles to the ceiling, and then the cork on the walls, I find she’s a great help, because I’m up on the ladder. She hands the tiles to me. I tell her what I’m doing, spreading mastic on the tile and fitting it in.

  ‘Would it not be easier and quicker if I spread the mastic down here, then handed the tile up to you?’

  ‘I think it would be too difficult, Mirabelle; the mastic must be just so thick and over the entire tile. It’s a messy business.’

  ‘I have rubber gloves in the kitchen. Let me try.’

  She goes away and comes back pulling pink rubber gloves onto her hands. I climb down the ladder thinking this is really going to slow things up. How can a blind woman spread mastic when most people who can see can’t do it right? I spread newspapers on the floor and pile tiles beside them. I let her feel the special serrated scraper I bought for spreading the mastic. I do one, then let her touch it with her fingers to know how thick it should be. She’s on her knees beside me. She nods that she understands. I go up to place the demonstration tile. I’m starting from one corner on the wall with the windows and I’ll spread out as I go. I’ll trim along the other two walls. I look down, and Mirabelle already has a tile, perfectly spread, ready for me. I take it from her.

  ‘Is it all right?’

  ‘It’s perfect, Mirabelle, you are a miracle woman.’

  ‘Perhaps, or maybe I am just a happy woman. Also, I feel like a real woman working with a man and it pleases me very much.’

  She’s on her knees again, spreading, while she says this, and has the next tile ready for me just when I need it.

  The work goes much faster. Mirabelle is down and up, spreading and reaching to me at the top of the ladder. I realize I’ve got the easy job, she’s the one who’s working. After about fifteen minutes, when we’ve covered the whole corner, far as I can reach, I move the ladder. I’ve already moved the bed out of the way. I have all the furniture on one side of the room now and covered with old newspapers.

  ‘Mirabelle, do you want to take a rest?’

  ‘Are you tired, Jacques? It must be very difficult standing high on a ladder and reaching up to the ceiling, I cannot even see it in my mind properly.’

  ‘No, the work you are doing is much more tiring. I was thinking of you. Aren’t you tired?’

  ‘I shall tell you when I am. I am not so old, you know, and I am in good condition.’

  By lunch, we’re well past the center of the room, soon we’ll be ready for cutting and fitting. The bells have just finished ringing. I come down the ladder, lift Mirabelle to her feet by her hands.

  ‘Shall we eat, Mirabelle?’

  ‘Oh yes, it is time, is it not. I have a wonderful boeuf bourguignon I started this morning, it should be finished by now.’

  She takes off her gloves and turns toward the kitchen. I smell the bourguignon as she lifts the top off her heavy black pot. The smell even overwhelms the smell of the mastic. I have mastic all over my hands and it’s also dripped into my hair in a few places. I go into the bathroom to wash up.

  When I come out, Mirabelle has already set the table, and is tossing a salad. She shows no signs of all the work she’s done this morning, not a drop of mastic, not a hair out of place. I pull up a chair and sit down.

  We dine like a king and queen.

  ‘Mirabelle, how did you get to be such a wonderful cook? This is delicious, I’ve never had such a tasty bourguignon.’

  ‘I cooked for my sister when she was alive. She showed me many things she had learned from our mother. It was something I could do. Also, when you are blind, there is such a sharpening of the other senses. I like very much to eat, to smell the food, to taste it. I do not eat much, but I eat carefully. It would always annoy poor Rolande because I ate so slowly. I like it very much that you eat slowly, too.’

  ‘It is something I have only recently learned, Mirabelle. Sometimes, when I was living in the street, all I wanted was alcohol. Then, when I started to recover, when I was cooking my own food in the attic, I learned to truly taste things, trying to separate the tastes in my mouth so I could know the blends of different vegetables, the way carrots are next to potatoes or to poireau, or onion. For the first time in my life I was in no hurry and I took my time. I learned then that my time was my own, and the small pleasures such as eating and tasting were a good part of it.’

  ‘That is very wise of you. For a young man you have learned much.’

  ‘I’m not so young, Mirabelle. I told you I was forty-nine. That is not so young. Soon I shall be fifty, half a century old.’

  ‘Ah, that is young. You have much exciting life before you.’

  I’d forgotten how old Mirabelle is. By my calculation, she’s twenty-two years older than I. It’s hard to believe. I look across the table at her, daintily cutting and eating a piece of meat. She feels me somehow, looks up, and smiles. Then she looks down at her food again. Somehow we’ve said something, without a word.

  We work the rest of that afternoon. I have a special tool for trimming the corners. I cut first, Mirabelle smears on the mastic, and I slide the tile into place. It goes fast, so we’re finished before the bells ring six o’clock. I climb down the la
dder and look up. The ceiling tiles are beautiful and the room is much lighter now with the reflected light. Mirabelle is standing beside me.

  ‘Can you tell me something of how it looks? I know you are proud of it. It is as with the paintings, it is in your voice, the way you move. Try to tell me, please.’

  ‘It is a simple thing, Mirabelle. Now, instead of a stained, dark ceiling with cracks, it is all white. The squares fit into each other and there are holes in the tiles in little lines, as you probably felt with your fingers. Now the ceiling reflects the light coming in from the window and from the door. It is much more light than it was before and looks as if it is a new ceiling.’

  ‘It sounds wonderful. Thank you. I enjoyed working with you, Jacques. This has been another special day; let us now have our souper.’

  ‘First, I’ll clean up everything and move the bed back into place. I’ll pile the newspapers on the dresser so we can use them next time. By the way, Mirabelle, why do you have these newspapers?’

  ‘The concierge next door gives them to me. You are finding out one of my little secrets. I shall show you what I do with them another day.’

  That night in bed I feel the muscles of my back and shoulders tight, from all the reaching. I also feel myself waiting. I don’t have to wait long; the door opens just a crack, enough so I can see Mirabelle against the window in the room behind her.

  ‘May I come in, Jacques? Are you too tired?’

  ‘Come in, Mirabelle. To be honest, I’ve been lying here in the dark waiting for you. I’ve been trying to figure out what a blind woman can be doing with all those newspapers. Maybe you aren’t really blind and all this is some kind of charade you’re playing.’

  She comes into the room, shutting the door behind her.

  ‘Do not be cruel, Jacques. I shall tell you about the newspapers another time. It is perhaps somewhat erratic, what I do with them, but when one is blind one must take advantage of all the possibilities.’