was propped beside it, and when the breeze paused the flag furled, its colours tipped vertical, so that it resembled, to Midhat’s mind, a cloak with a stained hem.
A few days afterwards, Marian announced that she was joining the volunteer nurses. She was posted at Divonne-les-Bains on the Swiss border, and in her letters to Jeannette she described the disfigured men whose wounds she was cleaning. One was paralytic, and another had lost the use of both hands. One had no thumbs, one had a leg as fat as an elephant’s, one had lost the lower half of his jaw and smoked cigarettes through his nose. And the violets were blooming in the fields, she said, more fragrant than at home, and yellow primroses lined the forest floor.
Given that Paul was the first relative of the Molineus killed in action, Midhat expected Jeannette to withdraw further from him in her grief. Ever since the party in December, his feelings towards her had become tangled with his feelings about Laurent. Even though, to examine it logically, Laurent’s confession that he still loved Jeannette implied that Jeannette had not responded in the first instance, he remained helplessly jealous all the same, not only because someone had usurped him by desiring Jeannette first, but also because Laurent was French, and more advanced than Midhat in his studies, and had gone off to war, and was from every angle more suitable to be Jeannette’s husband than a Palestinian from Nablus who was a citizen of the enemy.
But, in fact, after the news of Paul’s death Jeannette turned towards Midhat. She sought him out after meals, asking him questions about his studies; she knocked on his door while he was reading, apologised for the interruption, but would he like a biscuit and a cup of tea? Midhat’s classes at the Faculty were in the afternoons, and the clinics in the morning were optional for first-year students. So the mornings became time to spend with Jeannette. They parted at the breakfast table, and when the door banged with Docteur Molineu’s departure, they reunited in the hall, as though casually, without acknowledging the subterfuge.
The first time came about by accident. Midhat was in his bedroom trying to learn the bones of the body. Ilium, sacrum, patella. Tarsus, metatarsus. He copied the lines in his notebook, and the words became paler and paler. He shook the pen. Tibia, fibula, calcaneus.
The door of Docteur Molineu’s study was ajar. He pushed it open, and found himself in a surprisingly grand room. Three of the walls were lined with books up to the ceiling, and the fourth gave a view of the neighbouring farm and the blue hills through a bay window flanked by maroon curtains that sprawled from a tasselled pelmet. The woodwork was painted dark turquoise. In the corner stood an armchair, and in the centre a large desk with a leather work surface, spread over with piles of paper and a few volumes. Two inkwells sat on the far edge, both half-full of black. One was rimmed with green, the other with red. He hesitated.
“Monsieur Midhat?”
He spun round. Jeannette was standing in the shadow of the door.
“I have run out of ink,” he said.
He noticed that her neck was red, and a couple of hairs from the front of her head had trailed down from their pins. Oddly, at his words the redness spread over her entire face. It was an opening, he saw: they were dislocated from their usual positions—across a table, seated—and neither had the usual composure. He took a step to the side.
“Would you like to go for a walk?”
“Oh.” Her dark pupils cooled, and in a moment she replied, with renewed self-possession: “Thank you. That would be lovely.”
They met in the hallway wearing their coats, left the house without speaking, and walked up to the Boulevard du Jeu de Paume. Day was brightening, the streets were full of people, and there were enough distractions for them to ignore their mutual silence. The Beaux Arts steeples, the Palais de Justice decked with flags, submarine windows bulging out from slate roofs, shining with daylight. Midhat led the way to the Botanic Garden. Ilium, sacrum, patella, sang in his head. They reached the green gates.
“I used to come here with Laurent,” he said, touching the railing.
But he found he knew the park no better now than on that first visit, and he slowed his pace. He chose the hedgerow path, and after that did not force any