Illegal Liaisons (8 page)

“Even with Aunt Barbara!”

Jonathan nodded. He’d observed Megi struggling with herself for years. He didn’t really know how to help because he didn’t like analyzing other people’s personalities or individual behavior. Even in his stories he adhered to a behaviorist view. He didn’t make notes about his characters’ traits; if a hare or elephant got mixed up in something, it came from the story.

Jonathan preferred to think in images about people around him, which is why a scene from ten years ago now appeared in front of his eyes: Megi – tall, slim, running about carrying plates, unaware of the sexy sway of her hips. It had been a couple of weeks after their wedding, and Megi – brought up without a father, according to her relatives – had insisted on making dinner for them.

Jonathan couldn’t tear his eyes away from her and finally grabbed her in the kitchen, slipping his hand beneath her blouse. She scolded him and he looked at her, astounded. He’d fallen in love with a great girl brought up by strong, wise women, and here was this little bourgeoise, worried that Aunt Barbara was grumbling about the veal!

For a while Megi had scrupulously remembered the name days of her uncles and aunts, and even her mother, whom the family had crossed off because she’d dared to get a divorce. They’d been prepared to accept her now – until Aunt Barbara tried to introduce her to her daughter’s mother-in-law as a widow. “I’m a divorcee,” Megi’s mother had corrected her. What was worse, when asked when she was going to marry her fiancé, she’d asked, “Which one?”

Jonathan, who was also “stranded” – his mother had married again and his father was living with another woman – adored his mother-in-law and wouldn’t let himself be carried away by his wife’s romantic visions of the supportive clan. He’d decided to wait out the period of heightened socialising that the wedding had brought down on Megi. To expect a group of people tied by blood always to stand like a wall behind them was, he believed, childish. He was right. A wall did quickly spring up but between them and her relatives. Jonathan’s and Megi’s absence at a cousin’s wedding, belated greetings, an inappropriate present, not calling back or calling at the wrong moment – and the rubbish already began to stack up.

He now stroked Megi’s fair hair. He’d fallen in love with her because she was beautiful and had the makings of an individual, not a cog in a mixer, blending family celebrations.

“Even with Aunt Barbara,” he repeated after her.

“Shhh, they’ll realize we’re not asleep.” She put her hand over his mouth just as Adelka’s face appeared in the door.

“Magda dear, where is the colander with the small holes? So, off in forty minutes, are we?”

Adelka found Grand Place small while Robert paid no attention to the buildings because he was telling Jonathan about the sick system of promoting employees in his bank.

“If he got a new Toyota Picasso at the start why can’t I choose a car? Why do I have to drive around in what’s practically a wreck?”

“Look at this Art Nouveau building.” Megi indicated the narrow building with windows shaped like portholes covered in seaweed.

“It must be dark in there,” Adelka pondered. “Italy’s got better ones but you can’t really live in them either. Stucco’s all well and good but I need a new bathroom. Oh, I didn’t tell you in the end about the tiles Robert’s found for our kitchen! You know how much they cost?”

“There’s a very good café here. Shall we go for a coffee?” Jonathan suggested, catching his wife’s grateful eye.

They returned from dinner just before midnight. Jonathan avoided the tunnels so as to show his guests the Avenue Louise lit up.

“Chanel,” squealed Adelka in the back. “And Dior!”

“That’s all women think about,” muttered Robert, leaning over to Jonathan. “So when are you going back?”

“In about ten minutes?”

“I’m talking about your country.”

“Poland? But we’ve only just left!”

“You’re right, must make some money to take back with you.”

“I don’t want to go back,” Jonathan let slip. “Well, certainly not now anyway.”

“Look, Adelka, Tommy Hilfiger.” Megi’s voice reached them.

“Well, brother, you’re lucky your wife brought you here, then,” Robert said, bridling.

When they got back, the babysitter, exhausted with looking after the three children, needed someone to drive her home.

“I’ll go,” Jonathan was quick to volunteer.

He dropped the girl at the seedy end of rue Dansaert, which was famous for its expensive shops, and turned back to the city center. His cell beeped – he was to be in Ixelles within ten minutes. He made a sharp turn right.

He’d be late coming home. What would he tell his wife? He’d think of something. That there was a traffic jam. Or a detour. That he’d got lost – after all, he didn’t know the city all that well yet. “Sorry, Megi, I got lost,” he repeated as he sped over the limit to Andrea.

On Sunday, Megi drove their guests to the airport while Jonathan gave the children their supper and put them to bed. Once they were asleep he stretched out on the bed in the conjugal bedroom and gazed at the sky through the loft window. Two stars shone brightly, moved toward each other – no, they were airplanes.

He closed his eyes. Last night’s quick rendezvous with Andrea, and then the next; lust pressed them more than time. She’d pulled a condom on to him, murmuring with feigned gravity, “Securing a condom is probably more effective on a cock that’s thicker at the base, not one shaped like a baseball bat.”

They’d made love with such force she’d scratched his sides with her fingernails. With her, he discovered new depths of erotic imagination; he wanted things that had never entered his mind before. Instead of pinning reality down with “to do” notes, he jotted down ideas in his memory to try out with Andrea. She was his inspiration, so unremitting that he started to wear his shirts pulled out over his trousers in order to hide his frequent erections.

The church bells chimed. They arranged to meet in churches because hardly anybody went there apart from them. The temples of their love. They would meet there and then go to her place. Even now, on hearing the bells, the head of his cock stirred gently in his trousers.

He reached for his notebook to make some notes for his course but again he was distracted by the recollection of how they’d fucked on the leather sofa in Andrea’s apartment. She hadn’t wanted to make love to
him in the bedroom and he hadn’t insisted – the smell of Simon might have had an adverse effect on his erection.

When she returned from the airport, Megi sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the bedspread.

“You know, my grandmother used to treat the marital bed with great respect?”

“Your grandmother?” Jonathan’s eyebrows shot up. “That somehow doesn’t fit with her. She was no traditionalist.”

“I told her once that a friend of mine from school was having an affair with a married man and they met at his place. And Granny replied, “In the same bed as the other woman?” And I said, “Granny. She’s having an affair with a married man. Do you understand?” To which Granny responded, “Yes, she is. But in the marital bed! Can’t they do it somewhere else?” ’

Jonathan put his notes aside. Megi had started unfastening her blouse seductively – she must have seen the cock promisingly stiff in his trousers. She slipped her bra straps down but the more naked she was, the further he retreated into himself. He came, finally, despairingly, with his face hidden in her bust.

T
HE APPLES
stood in a black bowl, their red skins gleaming. The richness of their color came from the rays of the setting September sun, which peeped into the room where Jonathan held his course. The stripes on the bowl spiralled to infinity and were as effective as a professional hypnotist. With difficulty, Jonathan tore his eyes away from them and looked at the seated group.

Their international character reflected the variety of Brussels’s inhabitants. Of different races, cultures, descent, they all came from somewhere else; most of them were still en route. They had stopped here for a year or twenty; time would show whether they’d be able to give up further wandering and decide to set down roots.

Jonathan pushed the list aside; he knew their names by heart.

“Geert,” he turned to the gray-haired man dressed in a jacket with beige patches at the elbows. “I wonder why you write.”

Geert blinked and adjusted himself on the chair; his wire-framed glasses made him appear concerned.

“Why do I write?” he repeated like a child wanting to gain time. “Ehhh … That’s a difficult question.”

“A bit like asking, ‘What’s your favorite book?’ ” The black British woman, Kitty, joined in. She was plump, her tight black curls swirled beneath a colorful headscarf; the green eyes set in a dark face were surprising. “I never know what to say.”

“Nor do I,” agreed Ariane, an attractive German of over fifty. “Almost as bad as, ‘What’s your favorite color?”

“Black,” muttered Geert. “Why do I write … Because there’s a story I want to write. Have to.”

“It’s important for you, is it?” asked Jonathan.

“Yes. Very … For me, that is, because I don’t know what …”

“Why is it important?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say in a couple of words.” Geert now spoke faster. “It’s important because in a way it’s there … That is, somehow I keep dwelling on it.” He looked helplessly around at the gathered group. “It’s the base on which I built the rest.”

“The rest? Other stories?”

“My life.”

A steady tapping could be heard in the silence – a fat autumn fly bounced against the window. Thirty-year-old Jean-Pierre, sitting on the other side of the tables, sprawled out on his chair, frowned in concentration. The fly took off and collided with his bald pate.

Geert sat with lowered head. Jonathan opened his mouth but Ariane was there before him.

“I can understand that perfectly well,” she told Geert, who raised his worried eyes to her. “My story’s also got layers that I want to write down. My daughters say I’ve lived through a lot and am very good at talking about it. But they don’t have the time to listen. They say I should write it all down. I’ve even started doing so but it’s an uphill struggle. I used to be able to write quite well – got top marks at school – but then, working for so many years as an architect, my pen got rusty.”

“You want to get going as a writer?” prompted Jonathan.

“Refresh my skill.” He noticed that her French was precise, avoided vulgar influences. “Somehow I’ve got to put across what happened. There are so many stories.”

She laughed, revealing her even teeth. Geert blinked; Jean-Pierre adjusted himself on his chair. Jonathan stopped himself from laughing at the sight of the males instinctively reacting to Ariane’s sexy smile.

At this relaxed moment, Geert’s confession seemed out of place.

“I have only one story.”

“And I don’t have any,” Kitty interrupted. She had a rattling accent; Jonathan automatically scanned England in his head, searching for the girl’s roots. “Fiction puts me off.”

“Why?”

“I used to be a journalist,” sighed Kitty. “I worked in a press agency first, then on a daily paper. There’s a terrible emphasis on facts there.”

“And truth.” Jean-Pierre draped himself over his chair in a Byronic pose.

“Not necessarily.” Kitty frowned.

“You’ve had enough of facts?” Jonathan broke in.

“I want to slow down. I adore Virginia Woolf. I can read her for hours.
The Waves
or
Mrs Dalloway
, it’s all the same. In it, a day seems like an eternity.”

“And eternity seems like a day,” finished Nora, the oldest of the participants.

“Yes.” Kitty studied Nora carefully and repeated, “Yes.”

Jonathan looked at those gathered. There was a silence between them – one that was not embarrassing, since it reflected common thought. When Jean-Pierre started to wriggle restlessly in his chair, Jonathan pointed to the bowl.

“Help yourselves to the apples. They’re good for concentration.”

They ate, exchanging remarks that grew less and less formal, got to know each other. There was laughter first on one side of the table, then on the other; the anxious Geert looked at Ariane with increasing confidence, Jean-Pierre gesticulated in Kitty’s direction. A moment later, he looked around for a trash can. Not seeing one, he glanced enquiringly at Jonathan.

“Exactly,” said Jonathan. “The apple cores.”

They looked at him curiously.

“Take a good look at their shape.”

Ariane swept her eyes over the others, joined in embarrassment; Geert bestowed on her a saddened gaze. Jonathan laughed.

“You must think I’m the crazy Miss Trelawney, if you’ve read
Harry Potter
. You’re right, a core is a little like tea leaves, but see for yourselves the shapes you’ve created.”

Jean-Pierre rested his back against his chair and was the first to stretch out his hand with the apple core. A moment later it was Kitty with the expression, “What the hell!” Before a minute was up, everyone was examining what remained of their apples, exchanging comments and giggling nervously. Jonathan leaned over the cores with childish curiosity.

“One side bitten right down, the other not touched, beautiful, Geert. And here? The whole apple bitten round but you can’t see the seeds. While here, we have a fine piece of work, gnawed right through, pedantically …” He went on while they laughed and exchanged remarks.

Finally, he pulled himself up straight and stood behind the table.

“That was simply a quick hands-on lesson, intended to enable us to see how we get to the center.”

“I didn’t get there. I only ate the skin!” Jean-Pierre raised his hand.

“And that’s the next question: what, for each of us, constitutes the center?”

An hour later, Jonathan was in the park, kissing Andrea’s lips. Their bench was tucked away; the last rays of sun slid down the trunks of the chestnut trees. He took her face in his hands; they sat now, forehead against forehead, the girl’s eyes full of sun, almost amber.

He went home thinking about Andrea, moved and aroused.