Memory and Desire

by Lisa Appignanesi

  Lady Leonore was in strangely extravagant garb. She was bedecked with jewelry, row upon row of pearls, rings on most of her fingers, jangling bracelets, a tight sheath-like dress in luminous green, which obliterated the grace of her features. When she embraced Jacob, it was with unusual ardour. ‘Ah, the most handsome man in Paris has arrived at last. My son’s best friend. And my son could use some best friends.’

  ‘Mother,’ Jacob could hear the warning note in Jacques’s voice.

  There were two bright spots on Lady Leonore’s cheeks. ‘What is it Jacques? Would you rather kiss him on the lips yourself.’

  Jacob realised she was drunk. He sat down quietly in a corner of the room next to Jacques and observed M. Brenner trying not to pay any attention to his wife. The man looked ill. Jacob cast a questioning glance at Jacques and the latter shrugged. ‘The market. The money. It’s all gone.’ He made a despairing gesture.

  Before Jacob could respond, there was a little flurry of excitement as all eyes turned on the new arrival in the room. Jacob drew in his breath. For some reason he had lost all sense of the Princesse having a life distinct from their meetings. And here she was in the full splendour of what he suddenly realised was her real life. She was clothed in a deep burgundy gown of some fluid material which moved with her and admirably set off the warm tones of her skin, the luminous texture of her hair. She was, Jacob thought, regally beautiful.

  ‘And now that our guest of honour has arrived, we can all go to table,’ Lady Leonore announced in a voice too shrill. ‘You know everyone, of course, Princesse. In any case, everyone knows you,’ she giggled oddly at her own rudeness.

  Princesse Mathilde looked round the room graciously and smiled. Her fine eyes rested on Jacob fractionally longer. Perhaps he imagined it. He bowed formally in response, as did every man there.

  They moved into the dining room where the long rectangular table was laid with lace, ornate silver and gleaming candelabra. Jacob was too far from the Princesse to be able to engage her directly and he did his best to keep up a polite conversation with the women on either side of him. But he could see Mathilde clearly and also hear the barbed comments Lady Leonore continued to address to her. The rest of the table gradually grew breathlessly still.

  ‘And are those two darling boys of yours safely tucked up in Neuilly? It must be very convenient to have two houses so close to one another.’

  ‘Yes, very.’ Princesse Mathilde responded in a neutral voice.

  ‘And particularly convenient to have one’s husband a good two thousand kilometres away.’

  Jacob thought he detected a flush in the Princesses’ cheeks.

  ‘Frederick is not particularly fond of Paris,’ she murmured.

  ‘No. They are boring those Danes, aren’t they.’ Lady Leonore continued as she took another sip of wine. ‘I don’t know why you married him. Guess you had to, didn’t you. Poor thing. Poor little Princess.’

  ‘Come, come, Lady Leonore,’ the man at the Princesse’s side whom Jacob had just begun to take in, intervened. ‘Surely your own Shakespeare found the Danes a particularly interesting people.’ He tried to change the course of the conversation. Princesse Mathilde looked at him gratefully.

  ‘Dear dotty old Hamlet was the exception.’ Lady Leonore laughed too loudly. ‘But the rest of them are cold,’ she stressed the word, ‘and orderly, boringly cold, dismally orderly, wouldn’t you say Princesse?’

  ‘It depends what one’s tastes are,’ Princesse Mathilde said evenly. ‘I personally like a little order.’

  ‘But not coldness, surely. Not with your father’s waggish genes in your blood. He was quite the ladykiller in his youth, I’m told.’

  This time the flush was evident in Mathilde’s face.

  Lady Leonore seemed to be pleased by its appearance. She turned the direction of her assault. ‘Yes, but then so was my François in his youth,’ she looked pointedly at the other end of the table where M. Brenner was quietly picking at his canard aux cerises. Lady Leonore shook her blonde head balefully. ‘Not now. Not anymore. Nor my son, of course. No, no, certainly not my son.’

  ‘Mother.’ This time Jacques voice was harsh. He pushed his chair back loudly. ‘You will all excuse my mother, please, but we have had a hard day.’ With that he took Lady Leonore’s arm and all but pulled her from her chair. They vanished through the room’s double doors.

  ‘Please, my friends, be patient with us,’ François Brenner broke the resounding hush which had spread round the table. ‘Leonore is distressed. It may be the last time we are able to entertain you in this house which she has so loved.’ His voice had a quiet dignity. ‘Please, let us try to enjoy the rest of this dinner.’

  Desultory talk sprung up, but everyone was relieved to be able to move on to coffee in the dimmer light of the sitting room. Jacob hoped he might be able to exchange a few words with the Princesse now. He felt her embarrassment acutely. But the opportunity didn’t arise. She was talking intently to the man she had sat next to at dinner, and soon with the briefest of nods to Jacob, the two of them left together.

  Suddenly Jacob was struck with the thought that Lady Leonore’s comments might have had a deeper intent than he had supposed. Could she have been suggesting that this man and Mathilde were engaged in an affair. Jacob’s hand twisted into a tight fist. He felt an overwhelming urge to dash out and confirm whether they were getting into Mathilde’s silver Daimler together.

  Jacques chose this moment to come back into the room. One look at his friend and Jacob knew that he couldn’t leave without first comforting him.

  An hour later, however, he found himself hailing a taxi and ordering the driver to take the route to the Princesse’s apartment. He had an excuse ready. He simply wanted to make sure that Mathilde wasn’t too distressed by Lady Leonore’s onslaught. When he arrived and looked up at the darkened windows, he had a moment of trepidation. He had never come here without being awaited, expected. The Princesse’s everyday life was an unexplored terrain. He almost turned back. But then the feeling which had flooded through him as he watched the Princesse leave with her companion came back to him. He rang the bell, tried to sidle past the concierge’s all-seeing window invisibly, and raced up the stairs. When, after a long pause, the maid opened the door and looked at him with great perplexity, he sought uncomfortably for a pretext.

  ‘No, no, of course. Madame la Princesse isn’t in. Perhaps you can tell me when you expect her? I need… I need urgently to retrieve an article I lent her.’

  ‘Madame is not expected until Monday, Docteur Jardine.’

  At least she recognized him, Jacob thought. He hadn’t been sure.

  She looked at his crestfallen face. ‘Would you like to come in and retrieve the article yourself. I am sure Madame would not mind.’

  Jacob was a little taken aback; but now he couldn’t extricate himself gracefully. He nodded. She led him to the study and waited at the door. Jacob was at a loss. He felt like a thief though he didn’t know what it was he had come to steal. Dismayed, he looked at the Princesse’s neat desk and sheepishly rifled through some notepads and sheets of paper stacked on its right hand side. In his clumsiness, part of the pile slipped off the desk. Jacob reached to pick it up. Letters fluttered out of a bound notebook. Despite himself, Jacob read, ‘Ma adorable Princesse.’ Hastily, he returned the letter to the notebook. In doing so, he scanned the contents. Stories, vignettes, journal entries in the Princesse’s unmistakable hand. Furtively and with an increasing sense of malaise, he replaced the papers.

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I can’t find the piece. I have no idea where to begin to look.’ A salutary idea came to him, ‘Perhaps you could mention to the Princesse on Monday that I shall come round. The article I need is one of my own which I gave her a few weeks back.’ Luckily that much at least was true. Quickly, Jacob made his escape.

  Over the next few days, Jacob was tormented as much by his perfidy as by his musings about the Princesse, her husband, the man she had left the Bre
nners’ with. At the age of 25, he was a relatively inexperienced young man. Not sexually or even altogether emotionally: Mariette and Germaine, whom he numbered as his loves, had been succeeded by a number of demi-mondaines with whom he had had attachments of varying brevity and pleasure. But unlike many young men of his background, he had stayed away from intrigues with married women, though several had made their availability known. He simply wasn’t interested. Life was already too full. And the young unmarried women he met, his sister’s friends, though he was dearly attached to her, seemed to him vapid, full of endless, empty twitterings. Of course, he had read widely and in his imagination he was a man of consummate experience. But the lived reality was somewhat different.

  On Monday, as soon as he could free himself, Jacob went to Princesse Mathilde’s. The maid ushered him into the salon ‘Madame is receiving today,’ she said.

  Jacob had rarely set foot in the Princesse’s more formal salon. Here a classical harmony reigned, a formal symmetry of elements which defied the existence of private turmoil. The graceful chairs, upholstered with Aubusson tapestries; the curved splendour of a tete à tete; the fine Louis XVI cabinets with their intricate Boule marquetry and engraved coat of arms; the elegantly carved walnut secretaire; the inlaid Renaissance cabinet, with its richly painted panels - all spoke of a world where public and social relations took pride of place over any inner sphere. Jacob suddenly felt daunted, like an adolescent going to his first party. His prepared speech fled from his mind.

  ‘Jacob, I was told you might be dropping by. How very nice.’ The Princesse looked at him with a gracious smile.

  ‘Yes, yes. I needed to retrieve that article I had given you. I hope it’s not an imposition,’ he added, as an afterthought. He was embarrassed by the presence of the other people in the room.

  ‘Not at all. I shall fetch it for you in a moment. But do join us for a cup of tea first. These are my friends, Madame Ezard and Princesse Soutzo. ‘We were just bemoaning the fact that a mere 3.5 percent of boys in France receive a secondary school education from the state. It’s a scandalously small number.’

  Jacob murmured his agreement. He was surprised by the subject of conversation. It sat so oddly in this room which spoke of an older epoch of privilege. He contributed little and was relieved when after a few moments, the women, in a flurry of hats and gloves, began to take their leave.

  ‘I’ve chased them away. I’m sorry.’ Jacob said stiffly, once they were alone.

  The Princesse shook her brown curls. ‘Not at all,’ she responded politely. But the look she gave him was a quizzical one.

  An unusual and uncomfortable silence descended upon them, covered by the mutual sipping of tea. They broke it simultaneously. ‘I shall get that article now.’

  ‘I wanted to see you after the other night…’ Jacob followed her into the study, watched as she opened a drawer and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He was at a loss for words. He could only stare at the fluidity of her movements, the fine texture of her skin where the black dress met her slender neck. Hot unreason poured through him. Rashly, he walked over to her, took her hands in his. He looked down at them. They were beautiful, like her. Slim, gracious, yet somehow vital. He traced the outline of her fingertips. Then he kissed her. She didn’t resist, didn’t resist the growing strength of his embrace as he drew her to him. Only when his tongue probed her soft mouth did she murmur. Jacob withdrew a little. His breath came fast as he looked into her luminous eyes. ‘I only realised over these last few days how much you mean to me,’ he said feeling the words were somehow extraneous and then to hide his emotion, he drew her face to his shoulder. He stroked her hair. She trembled.

  Commotion reigned in Princesse Mathilde’s senses as thoroughly as in her mind and emotions. Despite her thirty years, her two children, she was in many respects a complete novice. Prince Frederick’s cursory kisses had never moved her in any way. Isolated from her peers, she had never had a childhood friend steal an excited embrace. She was more insulated by privilege from the advances of men than any Victorian spinster might have been by the armour of morality. Now suddenly, for the first time in her life her pulses raced dangerously. She lifted her face to him. ‘Kiss me again,’ she said, surprised at her naked, abrupt voice.

  Jacob moved his mouth lingeringly along the fine line of her chin where it met her ear until their lips found each other. From that kiss they emerged on the other side of an invisible barrier. Mathilde felt shy, vulnerable, and at the same time supremely powerful - powerful in the desire which she evoked in him; powerful, too, in the sensations which coursed through her own body. She looked into the smouldering darkness of Jacob’s eyes. ‘Come,’ she said, taking his hand. She led him into her bedroom, closing the door softly behind them.

  He kissed her again, more harshly now, his desire growing surer, keener. His hands strayed over her, cupping her breasts. Then with one easy movement he unclasped her dress, letting it slide down her silk slip. In a moment he was as naked as she. Mathilde drew in a rapid breath. She had never seen a man fully nude before, not in the flesh, not outside museums. She was enthralled by Jacob’s beauty, the strong neck, the agile torso, the firm elasticity of skin over muscle. Her eyes travelled lower, then stopped in momentary fear. No, there would never be room inside her. She remembered the hot dry pain, the disappointment, her father’s words, the humiliation.

  Jacob was awake to her sudden fear. It excited him. Hungrily he stroked the slender outline of her body, his lips following his fingers. He touched her there, rubbed softly. Her cry of surprise fuelled his passion.

  She was strangely innocent. The thought crystallised in him and filled him with awe. He drew her gently onto the bed, guided her quivering hands, urged her to explore until she found his penis. Cool fingers on jutting warmth. He gasped, buried his face in her breasts. Something in Mathilde was released by that sound, by the feel of that strong quivering animal in her hand; sensation rippled through her from unknown quarters; she could feel the wetness between her legs. She arched against him, called his name in small moans. Suddenly she wanted him inside her as she had never wanted anything before.

  Later they lay side by side, a little breathless, on the rumpled silk sheets. She stroked his body wonderingly, perched her face on the roughness of his chest and looked into his eyes. Her own were luminous. ‘I never knew,’ she said, ‘I had no idea it could be like this.’ Jacob smiled lingeringly. He drew her on top of him and kissed her eyes, her nose, her lips. She could feel his penis beneath her filling again, and she wondered at this too. Again, could it happen again, now? Jacob grasped her hips and pulled her down on him, thrusting into her so that she cried out at the infinite pleasure of it.

  ‘And like this,’ he said with a glimmer of irony when she had stopped rippling against him and their bodies lay entwined in moisture.

  She sat up and looked away from him. ‘You mustn’t laugh at me,’ she said softly. There were tears in her eyes. ‘For all your brilliance, you can’t understand what it’s like not to know, to think there is something uniquely wrong with you, to imagine it’s a congenital doom, to feel humiliated and yet helpless at the hands of a man.’

  Then Mathilde began to talk as she had never talked before. She told him about herself, about Frederick, about her father, not in any particular consecutive order, but in small capsules of interrelated pain. Jacob stroked her, stroked the small frightened girl in her. He wanted somehow to make it all up to her. He held her tightly in his arms and let her cry. The tears streamed over his bare shoulders.

  They slept. Mathilde dreamt Frederick was on top of her, his bulky form constricting her chest. She pushed him away, then realised it was her father. He cursed her vilely and she clung to him, moaning, ‘I love you.’ She woke, bathed in perspiration, to find her arms around Jacob’s back. He turned and kissed her, quieting her with his love.

  Over the next weeks, Jacob and Mathilde met whenever it was possible. Between meetings, they floated, wrapped in thoughts of
one another. Jacob had never been with a woman whose whole being excited him and satisfied him so much. The Princesse had simply never been in love and she revelled in it. Sexually-awakened, suddenly free of years of a gnawing unspecified anxiety, she found unknown resources in herself. She was witty, teasing, always generous. Her apartment became their world. In it the accumulated matter of their lives thronged. They interspersed their lovemaking with ardent discussions about sex, psychiatry, politics, education and Jacob’s growing interest in psychoanalysis. They gossiped endlessly about friends and acquaintances.

  One day Jacob confided in her his deep worry about Jacques and his parents. M. Brenner’s financial plight was destroying the family. Lady Leonore was suicidal; her husband, caught in a tide of hopelessness, seemed utterly paralysed. Jacques, at his wits’ end, simply sat and watched his mother embalm herself in alcohol.

  A few days after he had spoken of this to the Princesse, Jacob received a telephone call from Jacques. A miracle had occurred. An unknown had underwritten his father’s company, halting the bankruptcy proceedings. Jacques was going to make sure that they made good that mysterious confidence.

  When Jacob related all this to Mathilde, he watched her face closely.

  ‘What wonderful news,’ she said to him, her face brilliant with her smile. ‘I’m so pleased.’

  ‘Was it you?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Me?’ she looked at him, eyes wide in innocence. ‘What makes you think that?’ She laughed teasingly and stroked his hair. ‘And here I thought it was all your doing.’

  Jacob kissed her passionately, recognizing the truth.

  The Princesse grew bold with his embraces. She wanted to shout her bliss to the world. Instead, she cultivated the pleasures of secrecy. She would turn up in a salon or café that Jacob frequented and brazenly pretend he was a mere passing acquaintance. She asked him the most innocuous and maddening questions. Coolly, Jacob matched her at her game, deriving a similar delight from its elaboration. Later, in her apartment overlooking the Champs Elysées, they would laugh hilariously at the masked interludes they enacted.