that I should not have presumed …”
She faced him. She was painfully beautiful in the yellow dress. Her skin was like soft paper, those blue veins. He could tell by her eyes that she was experiencing some kind of emotion, but he hesitated to name it, so often was he getting things wrong.
“I am not jealous of Laurent. But you know I—I did mean what I said.” He swallowed. “And I’m sorry if you do not—if you do not feel the same, I will not … But, I miss you, Jeannette. Really.” He reached out for the nearest covered piece of furniture, wanting to sit and meet her level; but whatever he had gripped wobbled and he let it go. “I miss talking to you. It meant so much to me, walking with you, and without it, I can’t say what it is, but I lack … Really, I—I loved … And I want to help you to find out what happened to your mother. I will do anything I can.”
Jeannette’s eyebrows rose, though she did not actually look surprised. “My mother. That is kind of you, but there is nothing to be done. As I think I told you I don’t think it’s healthy for me …”
“But as long as you know that—that I am listening.”
Here, at last, she smiled. He had said the right thing.
“There is a line in The Three Musketeers …”
“Oh no, don’t quote The Three Musketeers!” She laughed, leaning back. “You know, you shouldn’t feel you have to rely on what other people have said all the time.” Her eyes rested on him for a moment, then she twisted and tucked her feet under the piano. “I’ll tell you. When I was studying at the university, I was always surrounded by these young men being knowledgeable.” She laughed again, a chain of exhalations. “And it was intimidating. I felt I was less than they were. They were men after all—and who was I?” Her fingers traced where the lid of the piano was hidden beneath its dress. She lifted the lid. The fabric caught on the back of it, like the skin of an eyelid. “I used to come home from the library and go through all my work with Papa. Then I found myself parroting him in my seminars, and I would say exactly what he had told me the night before. And then, after a while, I realised I didn’t need to. It was just language these men were playing with. I would listen very carefully to the arguments they made, the way they discussed things outside class. Leaning on this philosopher and that, adding clause after clause, and I realised it was just language, not life. They knew nothing about life, and this was everything to them, and it was small. And thinking that suddenly liberated me, and I was no longer afraid to speak up. And my speaking became better.” With her forefinger, she marked the cracks between the keys under the canvas, making indentations that disappeared as she moved from one to the next. “I could have disparaged them in my mind and made it easier for myself that way. I could have called them petty young men or something. But I didn’t, because what would have been the point?” She had outlined five keys, now six, her hand moving across the front of her body. “I’m trying to tell you that you shouldn’t think you have to be intimidated by things on the surface, like conversation.”
“I’m not intimidated.”
“Well, I’m just saying. You are not beneath them in any way. You may be much younger, but you have for one thing far more goodness than Patrice Nolin.”
She pressed a key. The sound was manifold and deep, glassy and warm at the same time. She gazed up at him as if she had voiced a dare. The challenge was so direct he should have felt embarrassed. He didn’t: he felt amazed. He felt an exhilarating exposure, the stinging relief of salt air.
“I think I am in love with you,” he said. His mouth was dry. “I also think you are quite unreasonable.”
She remained looking up at him, until they heard the grate of a floorboard.
“Ah, pardon me,” said Georgine, closing the door again.
The interruption solidified the moment. Jeannette whispered that she should go to bed, and moved past. Midhat waited alone for a few more minutes amid the covered furniture, hearing the rain mutter on the window.
In the kitchen, Georgine was