by Lily Tuck
We’ll go for a walk, he says. A little exercise will do me good, he adds.
It is late in the spring but some of the chestnut trees are still in bloom and their blossoms mingle with the leaves of the trees to form a canopy over the forest floor, a green carpet densely packed with low bushes, grasses, and clusters of delicate little white flowers that Nina does not know the name of.
Neither does Didier.
Crisscrossing the forest are well-maintained paths—allées they are called—some of the names are marked on signposts.
It must be easy to get lost, Nina says.
I’ve walked here ever since I was a child, he answers. I know the forest by heart. In the fall, I go hunting here.
Fox hunting?
Stag hunting.
They talk about the different American schools. One of Didier’s daughters wants to go to college in the States. Nina describes the one she went to.
Then, coming toward them, they hear the sound of galloping hooves.
Careful, Didier says, taking Nina’s arm and drawing her to the side of the path as two riders, crouched jockey style, gallop past them.
The sandy soil is good terrain for training horses, Didier says, still holding on to Nina’s arm.
She starts to answer how she, too, likes to ride, but Didier has pulled her to him and is kissing her. She tries to pull back but he has hold of her arm and is twisting it behind her, forcing her to lift her face up to him. His mouth presses so hard against hers that she feels his teeth. Then, half dragging her farther into the forest, he forces her to the ground.
Nina hits the side of her head on something.
Didier! she cries out. Don’t, please!
I wanted to make love to you from the first moment I saw you, he says.
Already, he is on top of her and, with one practiced hand, he pushes up her skirt and is pulling down her underwear.
At first, she struggles against him; then, looking past him at the treetops overhead, she lets him.
Afterward, walking back down the allée, Didier stops to pick a few of the delicate white flowers that neither of them knows the name of and he puts some in Nina’s hair.
Kissing her lightly on the cheek, he says, Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?
Shaking the flowers out of her hair, Nina does not answer him.
In the rented car on their way back to Paris, Philip asks, How was your walk with Didier?
Fine.
They are stalled in traffic, long lines of cars ahead and behind them. A few motorcycles weave noisily and triumphantly in between the cars; drivers honk their horns uselessly. Also, it has begun to rain, a light drizzle.
How is it everyone always drives home from the weekend at the same time? Philip asks. I should make a study of the probability. He turns on the windshield wipers; they make a grating sound on the glass.
Perhaps there’s been an accident. I hate that noise, Nina says.
Glancing over at her, Philip asks, What did you two talk about?
Me and Didier? He asked me about American colleges for Cécile, his daughter. Next year, after she passes her Bac.
The cars begin slowly to move again.
Doesn’t that jerk know how to signal? Philip makes an angry gesture with his hand at the driver in front of him.
We saw some horses galloping down the allée—they were racehorses, I think, Nina volunteers.
Those allées were designed by André Le Nôtre for the Prince de Condé, Louis XIV’s cousin.
I know, you’ve told me.
Is something wrong? Philip says.
A headache, Nina answers, touching the side of her head. I think I’m getting a migraine.
Sometimes, when Philip comes back from being away, she sniffs through his laundry, searching for the scent of an unfamiliar perfume—patchouli, jasmine, tuberoses.
What is her name?
The name of a city.
Sofia.
Lies of awful omission.
She had an abortion.
She pours the last of the wine.
Should she tell him?
In the dark room, she tries to make out Philip’s features.
Can he hear her?
Somewhere—where she cannot recall—she has read how each of us is a bundle of fragments of other people’s souls, the souls of all the people we have known.
She does not believe this.
She is not a fragment of Didier’s soul.
Didier died a few years ago, of colon cancer, and Nina wrote Anne, his wife, saying she remembered how he was full of joie de vivre and how he always embraced life.
Embraced her, she thinks.
Outside, she hears a car slowly drive by. Nina goes to the window and, parting the curtains, she catches a glimpse of the taillights before they disappear into the dark. Who, she wonders, is out at this time of night? And where are they going? There are only a few houses on the road and, at this hour, she supposes, all their occupants are asleep.
The first city that was home to her was Atlanta; next came Cincinnati; then her family was sent abroad. First, they went to Montevideo, later they moved to Rome, still later to Brussels. Nina’s father worked for a multinational company that manufactures household products: soaps, cleaning powders, detergents. As a result of all the moves, Nina learned to speak Spanish, Italian, and French but because she had to change schools so often, she never learned to speak any of those languages properly. Also, it was difficult for her to make friends; she spent her time reading, daydreaming.
What has made her think of this?
The car’s disappearing taillights?
Early on, when she was eight years old and living in Uruguay and long before she had heard of solipsism, she devised the idea that only she existed in the world. A war, an appalling crime, or, merely, a dish falling and breaking on the ground, a door slamming in the next house, occurred for her benefit alone. Everything else was a void, a huge emptiness, nothing.
She remembers little about Uruguay: the balcony overlooking the street outside the dining room and how once she threw a glass of water on a boy walking below—angry, the boy had looked up and shouted, Puta, puta; her school pinafore with her name plainly embroidered in thick red thread on her chest—Niña, niña, she was teased; the maid picking her up from school and teaching her how to roll her Rs.
RRRR—she curls her tongue and rolls the Rs out loud.
She has not forgotten how and this pleases her a little.
CaRRRavaggio—she tries again.
A little impatient, Philip claims that the painting is too sentimental. He much prefers, he says, the vigorous realism of The Conversion of St. Paul on the Way to Damascus and The Crucifixion of St. Peter, the two Caravaggio paintings in Santa Maria del Popolo.
I can’t explain it, Nina says as they leave the gallery, but there is something about the angel that is very sensual. Erotic almost, she says. He is so robust—the way he stands, nearly naked, on one leg, his hip jutting out. But his black wings look too small, too delicate, as if they were painted on as an afterthought … Nina does not finish.
On the way to the restaurant—or perhaps the theft takes place while they are in the Palazzo Doria Pamphili—Philip is pickpocketed, his wallet stolen. Only after they have eaten and it is time to pay does he notice that the wallet is gone. He then has to spend the better part of the afternoon at the police station; he has to cancel his credit cards—already someone has charged thousands of euros worth of appliances—and he misses several important lectures.
I should have paid more attention, he tells Nina, patting his jacket pocket.
Diane, the other woman who works with Nina in the art gallery, goes with her. Her boyfriend, a medical student, has given Diane a phone number. When Nina dials it, a man answers. After asking her how many weeks she is pregnant, he gives her an address and tells her to come at two o’clock the day after next, which is a Wednesday—mercredi. In addition, he tells her to buy disinfectant and cotton—there is a ph
armacy on the corner of the street—and to bring two thousand new francs in cash. He never tells her his name.
He might have killed her.
Fortunate, except for fog, they rarely encounter bad weather. Once, only, are they caught in a storm—the tail end of a Florida hurricane—with waves crashing on the deck, the wind tearing at the sails, the boat heeling so far over it takes on water.
Poor Hypatia, Philip says. She came close to being skinned alive a second time.
In the dark, she shudders and drinks a little more wine.
The boom breaks Philip’s nose and his front tooth; down below, Nina is thrown against the edge of the stove top and cracks a rib.
The hospital in the Maine coastal town is small, the staff efficient and friendly. Nothing can be done about her cracked rib except warn her not to cough or laugh. She is given pain pills. Philip’s nose is set by inserting a metal rod up his nostril; she hears him cry out. He is lying next to her in the emergency room. As for his tooth, the dentist at home will fashion an expensive cap for it.
Leaning over the bed, Nina touches Philip’s face; with her finger she traces the outline of his nose. No one could guess that he broke it.
Over and over, she tries to do Philip’s portrait in oil; each time, dissatisfied, she puts the painting aside. The quick sketches in charcoal are better. The problem is Philip’s mouth—she can never get it right—his lips curl in an unnatural way. The last time she paints him, she wants to do him nude.
Take off your shirt, your pants, she tells him, your shoes and socks.
Your boxer shorts, too, she adds.
Standing with his hands on his hips, Philip refuses to take them off.
Don’t be silly, Nina says.
I don’t feel comfortable standing here naked, he complains. And it’s cold.
Nude not naked, Nina replies. And think of me as a professional and not as your wife.
How can I think of you as not my wife? Philip asks.
I don’t know. Aren’t you supposed to have an imagination?
Still, he refuses to take his boxers off.
Recently, at an exhibition, Nina saw a painting Lucian Freud did of his mother after she had died. A beautiful and serene portrait of a wrinkled, old woman with her eyes closed, her hands crossed over her chest, lying on her back on a narrow iron bed.
She cannot imagine painting Philip now.
The boxer shorts Philip wears while he poses for her are light blue but she paints them bright red—a carmine red—the closest she comes to have him nude.
Lorna again.
She runs into them unexpectedly in a popular health food restaurant. Sitting across from each other in a booth, they are eating lunch—not touching. What distresses her is how animated they look. When they catch sight of her, abruptly, they stop talking.
Philip waves her over.
What are you eating? Nina cannot think of what to say. Garbanzo bean stew—do you want to taste it? Philip holds a spoonful out to her.
No, thanks. Nina makes a face.
Philip’s metabolism is good; he does not gain weight. He eats what he wants and eats everything.
She remembers the chicken getting cold downstairs—the sauce and fat congealing together on the platter. She prefers the white meat, the breast; Philip prefers the thigh and drumstick.
How well suited they are.
Louise, she thinks.
Oblivious, Louise is asleep, content after sex, in the arms of a handsome young man. In the morning, everything will change. The handsome young man will be forgotten as Louise quickly packs her suitcase, drives to the airport, and flies back home.
Louise, Philip’s darling. Always strong and sensible.
When she was two years old, Louise came down with spinal meningitis. Nina did not recognize the symptoms right away—fever and vomiting. At the time, she thought Louise had a stomach flu or had eaten something that did not agree with her.
Then Louise had a seizure. Then she went into a coma.
For once, Nina prayed. In the hospital chapel, on her knees, she prayed and prayed. She lit candles for Louise. She made God all kinds of promises she could not keep.
God in heaven, Nina says to herself.
God in heaven, she repeats, not sure what she means. Green pastures filled with contented white sheep is how she sees it. Wearing dresses, the color of candy, Iris and Lorna are waiting for Philip.
Like in a bad novel.
But going through the motions—attending church, kneeling, praying—is what, according to Philip, Pascal recommends for people like her who still question the existence of God.
She tries to remember the words of the psalm: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures—she shuts her eyes to think but she has forgotten what comes next.
A different song begins to sound in her head:
Won’t you lay your head upon your savior’s breast
I love you but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you good night, good night, good night….
Hadn’t they once gone to a Grateful Dead concert?
A hot and humid summer night, the air thick with the smell of pot. The Hearst Greek amphitheater is packed with people waving their arms and screaming. Nina can hardly hear the music, much less the words—only she knows most of them by heart. She keeps her eyes fixed on one of the musicians, the piano player. His hair is long and parted in the middle; he looks stoned.
She pictures herself in bed with him.
And we bid you good night, good night, good night, she and Philip sing in the car on the way home.
They come close then to getting separated.
Her only friend in Berkeley is the mother of one of Louise’s classmates. Dark-haired and thin, Patsy is divorced. She lives in an apartment complex a few blocks from Nina and Philip’s house; she has a younger boyfriend, Todd. Todd works at Mammoth as a ski patrolman; on his day off, he comes and stays with Patsy. He always arrives with marijuana and other forbidden substances in his worn black backpack.
Where does he get all that? Nina has to ask.
From skiers who break their legs and give him their stash, Patsy tells Nina. They don’t want to go to the hospital with that stuff in their pockets—the nurses will confiscate it or, worse, report them to the police.
Nina’s drug of choice is amyl nitrite, which comes in the form of a little blue capsule that she breaks in half and sniffs up her nose. Right away she gets a rush. Her blood vessels expand, her heart beats faster.
Poppers are good for sex, Patsy also tells Nina. They relax the sphincter muscles.
The what … Nina starts to ask.
While their daughters are in school, they also smoke marijuana. Pot makes Nina laugh.
Stretched out on Patsy’s living room floor, on the yellow synthetic rug that has a sour chemical smell, the window shades drawn, the room dark as night, she listens to a recording of wolf howls. The howls—a whole series of them—are described by a narrator with a clipped British voice.
A howl of alarm, he says.
Never, never—ha ha—has she heard anything so funny.
A chorus of howls.
Ha ha ha—she laughs.
Hoo hoo hoo—she howls like the wolves.
Next to her on the floor, Patsy and Todd are making out.
This, too, makes her laugh.
She never speaks of it to Philip.
She never speaks of it to Dr. Mayer.
Too late, come to think of it now, amyl nitrite is used to treat heart disease.
Again, she tries to remember exactly what he says when he comes home.
I am a bit tired, I am going to lie down for a few minutes before dinner, or does he say something else entirely?
She is spinning lettuce in the kitchen. She half listens.
What a day. All those meetings! You should hear how some of those physicists talk and talk.
Before going upstairs, he kisses her on the cheek.
/> She touches her cheek. This cheek.
Philip! Dinner! she calls to him.
Philip, darling! Dinner!
Darling, dear, sweetheart, honey—endearments she rarely uses.
Nor does Philip.
Ma chérie, he says.
Ma chérie is how he addresses her in the letters he writes when he returns to the States in the summer. He writes her two or three times a week—telephone calls are expensive and, anyway, she does not own a phone. She cannot always read the letters that are written in black ink on both sides of onionskin paper in his small cramped handwriting; the blue airmail envelopes are addressed to Mlle. Nina Hoffman, 8 rue Sophie-Germain, Paris 14ème, France.
He looks pleased when she tells him where she lives. A sign, he says.
A sign of what? Nina asks.
You don’t know whom the street is named for?
Nina frowns. No. She does not.
Sophie Germain was a famous eighteenth-century mathematician who set out to prove Fermat’s last theorem by saying that n is equal to a particular prime number and since prime numbers have no divisors….
Nina lives in a chambre de bonne six flights up narrow airless dark stairs; she has to share the toilet and the tub with the other occupants on her floor.
A sign of my not having a whole lot of money, she interrupts Philip.
“One of the most important correspondences in the history of mathematics,” Philip tells his students, “was between Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat. It began on August 24, 1654, and its object was to find a solution for the problem of the unfinished game.
“Take two players and place equal bets on who will win the best-out-of-five coin tosses. The players start the game but are forced to stop before either player has won, leaving one of them ahead 2 to 1. The question Pascal and Fermat pose is how will the two players divide the pot?”
Patsy never has enough money and Nina lends her some. And for a while, after she and Philip leave Berkeley, Nina stays in touch. Then Patsy moves to Santa Fe, then to Phoenix; Nina’s last letter is returned with Address Unknown stamped on the envelope.
“The way Pascal and Fermat solved the problem was to look at all the possible ways the game might have turned out had the two players finished and tossed five times. And since one player—let’s call her Louise after my six year old daughter—is ahead 2 to 1 after the three tosses—tosses that must have yielded two heads and one tail—the remaining two throws can yield—”
