it to Jeannette and picked up the first Quran, an old French edition bound in brown leather with a ridged gilt spine, entitled: “L’Alcoran de Mahomet Tom 1.” The second was a more recent translation in English.
“He has been studying me.”
She turned a page, and Midhat looked over her shoulder. One passage was large and legible.
The Effect of a New Language Learned by a Primitive Brain.
It is as if learning the word makes room in the mind for its meaning—its usage, nuance, connotation, and distinction—so that even if the word were forgotten, an indent in the surface of the mind would remain, an imprint, or cavity. Thus a wordless man may be capable of complex thought, except that he must once have learned to speak.
Jeannette did not move to turn the next page. They were silent.
“Did you know about this?” he said, after a moment.
“Of course not.”
“Do you … think … do you think I am …” His voice strained. “I must speak to him.”
He held the chair back for balance.
“Yes. I suppose you should.” She placed the book carefully on the desk. “Would you like me to come with you?”
“No. You and I—this is not the time for it. I need to sit down.”
Jeannette followed him to his bedroom. He sat on the bed as she watched from the doorway. Her eyes were red with suppressed tears.
“You can sit.”
He could not look at her. As her figure moved past he stared through the open door down the hall, where a light thrown from a window out of sight dispersed on the floorboards. He stared at the shapes framed by the door until they were estranged from his eye, and the banister became a woman’s arm, and the shadow in the far corner by the bathroom door a black shoe, with a long lace, which was in fact a shadowed gap where one of the floorboards had warped upwards.
He felt a cramp in his stomach. He was a guest, but the host had trespassed. And he too had trespassed, and transgressed, with the host’s daughter. Whose then was the crime? The spectre of his ignorance rose again before him. He thought he knew their public codes now, more or less—but the private ones? He had thought himself in the bosom of the family, capable—almost—of sitting in a chair in the study. He had thought his difference no difference. But if he was the father’s subject, how could he be the daughter’s husband? One did not study one’s sons-in-law.
Darkness was engulfing the view through the door, and the shadows widened and the light patches contracted, and the shoe in the corner disappeared in the pooling shade.
“Midhat?” Jeannette’s eyes were wide. “Midhat I just heard the door. They’re here.”
He heard himself respond.
“I should change,” she said. “They will have a drink first.”
She entered the field of the doorframe, moving in and out of light, and then she was gone.
He moved slowly. He put away his books and notes on their shelf in the cupboard, and pulled off his examination robe. He dressed himself in a dark grey suit, with a silver tiepin and a butterfly brooch on his lapel. He looked at his reflection in the mirrored door of the armoire. He tried to see what Frédéric saw. Something moved. It was the reflection of a branch from the garden tree, wagging in the breeze like a shaken arm.
In the hall the floorboard creaked; he opened the door and saw Jeannette at the top of the stairs. She wore a dark yellow gown with black lace over the shoulders.
“Come down,” she said.
“I will wait, and come after.”
Sylvain Leclair and Docteur Molineu were already at the table when he entered. Sylvain was beside Jeannette, and a place was set for Midhat beside the Docteur opposite her.
Leclair had lost some weight since he last came for dinner in the spring, though he was still large, and his face sagged slightly. His pointed eyebrows were grey; for some reason Midhat had remembered them black.
“Well. You will have to forgive us for the simplicity of the meal,” said Docteur Molineu to Sylvain. “I’m afraid we were unable to find any fowl or meat. But we do have butter, so hourra for that.”
Georgine brought bowls of pumpkin soup, and Molineu poured the wine.
“You have finished your examinations, I understand?” said Sylvain.