Air and Fire (11 page)

‘Make love to me.' She had to whisper, or he would hear.

‘Please,' she whispered.

She wished that he desired her more often, with more urgency, with violence, if need be. She could imagine that he might hold her down by her hair, that he might take her by surprise, against her will.

But his love for her, every aspect of his love, seemed so measured. Methodical, precise. It had been the same during the voyage from Le Havre. In their cabin there had been two single bunks, and he considered it undignified, he said, to make love in a narrow bunk – though he had, on more than one occasion, the voyage being so long, felt driven to submit to this indignity.

The bed lunged and creaked as he climbed in. She listened to his breathing deepen. Then, without thinking, almost despite herself, she reached out and touched his shoulder. He shifted suddenly away from her.

‘What is it?'

There was anger in his voice. She could not answer.

‘I was almost asleep,' he said. ‘You startled me.' He became gentler, more persuasive. ‘You know that I have to be up early in the morning.'

‘Of course, Théo. I'm sorry.' She turned away from him, lay on her side.

She felt him lift his head off the pillow and peer at her. She sensed his puzzlement, but knew it would not last. She closed her eyes and listened to her heart roll against her ribs. It was not long before the bed tilted and he sank back down into the sheets. Soon afterwards he was asleep.

She thought back to the summer when she met him. Though she was still only seventeen she had already been admired by many men, none of whom she cared for, not even remotely. Then, one afternoon, her father announced that Monsieur Théophile Valence, a former student of his, would be coming to their house for dinner.

When she saw him she could not look into his face. It was as if she knew that she would find what she had always wanted there, and was afraid suddenly. Her heart had vanished for a moment, completely vanished, like an animal falling into a trap, then it returned again, beating harder than before.

She remembered that she had stopped on the threshold to the drawing-room and watched the two men talking. It had been a hot day; evening sunlight gilded the arms of chairs, the raised piano lid, the crystal teardrops of the chandelier. Standing in the doorway, unobserved, it was his hands that she noticed first. They were not distinguished or refined at all. They did not taper, as men's hands were supposed to. They were not as smooth as ivory. She could see the veins knotting just above his knuckles as he gestured; she noted the big, square palm. They were, well, they were labourer's hands. And almost instantly the feeling
took hold of her, as deep as if she was asleep and dreaming: the feeling that she wanted more than anything to surrender to his hands, to feel his hands descend and settle on her skin. Standing there she could, in fact, imagine this possession, and because she could imagine it, she knew that it would happen. It was the sweetest and most scandalous delight, to know this with such certainty before he even saw her.

At that moment her father noticed her, and he smiled and rose from his chair, saying, ‘Ah, and here, at last, is my daughter –' And she had to pretend to be moving forwards, forwards into the room.

But what she had imagined did not happen. Nothing happened. She could not understand it.

At the Chantilly Derby that year, wearing a new dress (moon satin, daring for the afternoon), she had accepted compliments from no fewer than eleven members of the nobility, including a distant cousin of Napoleon III and a count from the Piedmont in Northern Italy, eleven pairs of lips had brushed the back of her mauve kid glove, but she could remember sitting in front of her triptych of mirrors after yet another desolate encounter with Théo and fingering her dark-blonde ringlets and thinking: What is it? What is wrong with me? For the truth was, he did not seem to see her. He just did not seem to see her at all. Autumn came, and she lay in bed like a stone, not even blinking.

In desperation she consulted her closest friend, Lucille, who was two years her senior and had more experience of the world.

‘Lucille?' she said. ‘Am I ugly?'

Lucille stared at her, and then she began to laugh. She had a pretty laugh – like a bell, men often said – but that day it had grated.

‘It's not a joke, Lucille.'

‘It has got to be.'

‘Just tell me the truth. I want to hear the truth.'

‘You're beautiful, Suzanne. Everybody thinks so. I always wanted to look like you.'

Suzanne told Lucille about Théo.

‘Perhaps there is something wrong with him,' Lucille suggested. ‘Perhaps,' and she lowered her voice, ‘he doesn't like women.'

Suzanne shook her head. ‘He was engaged once. My father told me.'

Lucille sighed.

When she left that afternoon she took Suzanne's hand in both of hers. ‘Men can be slow sometimes,' she said. ‘Men can be blind.' She kissed
Suzanne on the cheek. ‘He will come round, don't you worry. He will come round in the end.'

And he did, of course. In the end.

She felt cold suddenly. She moved closer to Théo in the bed – gently, imperceptibly, so he would not wake – until she could feel his warmth against her belly and her thighs. It was no reflection on her that he did not make love to her more often. He was under pressure, that was all. He had so much to do.

She wedged a pillow between her knees and brought the sheet up to the soft hollow between her chin and her lower lip. I am married to the man I love, she thought, and let the thought repeat itself, over and over, until the sweet wine cut her moorings, and she slept.

17 Calle Francesa, Santa Sofía, Lower California, Mexico

30th April, 189–

My dear Monsieur Eiffel,

It is two weeks since we arrived in Santa Sofía, and I am pleased to report that things are at last beginning to run smoothly. During the past two days I have been supervising the final stages of unloading. All the longitudinal elements are now laid out on site in the usual manner, along with the majority of the end posts and tie bars, and I find myself marvelling once again at the intrinsic simplicity of the system 1 B
₂
4, 5 B
₄
8, etc. upon which all our endeavours are based. We have employed dry foundations, sinking to a depth of just half a metre; given the quality of the subsoil in El Pueblo and the nature of the shearing forces in this particular structure, there seemed no necessity to ensure against unequal settling. With the aid of Monsieur Castagnet, the timbering expert, we have fashioned a crude but satisfactory mast and a number of simple hoisting gins. Tomorrow we should be able to lift the first of the central arches into position.

I am aware that much of the above may sound pedantic, but it is a measure of our predicament. In a country as primitive as the one in which we find ourselves, nothing can be taken for granted; we must be grateful for small mercies. Though I have assembled a workforce of twenty-two men, they are, for the most part, Indians and have difficulty interpreting even the simplest of my directives. It is the clear and systematic methods on which our company prides itself, curiously enough, that seem to present an obstacle, since the ways of the native people are pervaded throughout by every conceivable illogicality and confusion. The most common word in their vocabulary is
'vara'
which, literally translated, means ‘nothing'. They come and stand before me, and when I ask
them why they have come, they say
‘Vara.'
If I then ask them what they want, they reply again,
‘Vara.'
It is quite maddening. Yesterday I received three successive
‘Vara's
from one man before I was able to elicit from him that he wanted to know when to report for work on the following day! At this point we were plunged abruptly into a new quandary, one that stemmed from differing approaches to the concept of time. Most of the Indians can only count to six, some only to three. (No Indian can say how many fingers he has; his reply will always be, ‘Many.') Since we could not communicate the idea of five o'clock in the morning we had, in the end, to settle for ‘early' or, in the revised version, ‘much early'. You are probably far more acquainted than I am with these frustrations, Monsieur, and I realise that I will have to learn that most irksome of virtues, namely patience. If current progress is anything to go by, the project is unlikely to be completed before June.

As you can see from the letter heading, we have moved into our new home. Though sparsely furnished, it is perfectly adequate, and Madame Valence is finding a hundred small ways of rendering the interior more pleasing, as only a woman can. She has bought two rugs from a Mexican trader to brighten the bare wood floors, and fills the rooms with various species of cactus which are, she claims, a substitute for flowers. In the absence of any paintings, she will no doubt hang her own! She is so occupied at present that I scarcely see her from dawn to dusk. Our neighbours have shown us every kindness, especially the Director of the company himself, Monsieur de Romblay, who is a most personable gentleman and a raconteur of some note. I will endeavour to keep you informed of our progress, such as it is, and hope this letter finds you, as always, in the very best of health.

I remain, with the deepest respect, Monsieur, your most humble servant,

Théophile Valence.

Suzanne had only met Captain Montoya once, at the welcoming banquet in the last week of April, and they had exchanged no more than the few required sentences, yet she had suspected, even then, that he would fall for her. It had not been hard to predict this infatuation; she had seen the signs in the mournful slackening of his face as he gazed at her across the table, and in the reverence with which he bent over her gloved hand and brushed it with his lips when she departed. Since that evening she had not thought of him at all except to smile when she remembered how Madame Bardou, the epitome of modesty and decorum, had caught a glimpse of his plumed hat on the chair and let out a shriek because she thought a cockerel had found its way into the room.

Then, one afternoon, she was woken from her siesta by a knocking on the door. Her maid, Imelda, always returned to her parents' shop in El Pueblo after lunch, so she was alone in the house. She drew a silk
peignoir
over her chemise and fastened her hair in a casual knot at the back of her head. It was the most silent hour of the day, and not a time when anyone would think of visiting. She assumed that it was Théo; he must have forgotten his keys. She stepped out into the corridor that ran through the centre of the house.

‘Who is it?'

‘It is I, Félix Montoya.'

Her surprise registered as an instinctive glance at the mirror, one hand moving up to adjust a stray twist of hair. She would have recognised his voice, even if he had not given her his name. He spoke French with an unmistakable accent, though he had assured her, on the night of the banquet, that he had learned the language at the most expensive school in Mexico City.

She unlocked the front door and then unfastened the screen door that lay beyond it. Captain Montoya was standing on the veranda in full dress uniform: a scarlet tunic with a stiff collar and silver epaulettes,
tight-fitting dove-grey trousers, and high black boots garnished with a pair of spurs. Rows of silver buttons ran down the outside of his trouser-legs. He wore a cutlass, too, housed in an ornate, hand-hammered silver scabbard.

‘Good afternoon, Captain,' she said.

He brought his heels together and bowed low.

‘I'm sorry to disturb you at such an hour, Madame,' he said, ‘but I have an invitation.'

Bowing again, he handed her an envelope. He would not look at her. She took the envelope. It had not been addressed, nor was there any name on it.

‘It's for me?' she asked.

‘It is.'

‘Am I to open it now?'

He shrugged. ‘As you wish.'

There was a tension and a carelessness about him. It was as if he were constantly in possession of some powerful emotion that he had to suppress, but whose existence was impossible to deny. She stared at him for a few moments then, when he still had not moved from the veranda, she asked him if he would like some refreshment before he continued on his way.

In retrospect she decided that perhaps she ought not to have encouraged him, though by then she was to realise that he would have seen encouragement even if it had not in fact been there. At the time she saw no harm in offering a little hospitality.

She led him into the parlour and showed him to a chair by the window. He sat down. The shutters had been drawn against the sun, and the room was cool.

‘I will just fetch you something,' she said.

When she returned from the kitchen with a glass of lemonade, he was sitting with a straight back, his eyes angled away from her. The room had relieved him of some portion of his glamour; he seemed inert, weighed down, encumbered by all the metal he was wearing. She handed him the glass and watched him while he drank. There were smudges beneath his eyes – signs of sleeplessness. His moustache was made up of two entirely separate triangles. There was a line beside his mouth which would deepen if he smiled. When he had finished almost half the contents of the glass, he put it down on the table by the window and stared at it, as if it were capable of moving by itself.

‘Is it good?' she asked him.

‘Yes, Madame.'

She took a seat across the room from him and picked up the envelope. ‘Now,' she said. ‘The invitation.'

Reaching for her paper-knife, she slit the seal. Inside she found a card that requested the presence of Monsieur and Madame Valence at the private residence of Captain Félix Tortoledo de Avilés Montoya on the 11th of May at five o'clock in the afternoon, for tea. It had been written in crimson ink, with a number of loops and flourishes, the graphological equivalent, she supposed, of spurs and epaulettes. She experienced a sudden and almost uncontrollable urge to burst out laughing, a desire which was only heightened by the Captain's mournful and unwavering gaze. She did not have to look at him to know. In fact, she dared not look. She concentrated on the invitation – its scalloped edges, its crimson loops and flourishes.