The Witches of Cambridge (14 page)

—

Noa has never been so happy. Not because she’s a little in love with Santiago Costa, though there is that, but because she’s finally and suddenly in love with her life. She can be with people and not see too much of them, not scare them away. She can hold ordinary conversations without some unspeakable secret slipping out of her mouth. She can stop permanently censoring herself. She can relax at last.

Now she sits in Gustare, surrounded by people—each, no doubt, with at least one, perhaps several, secrets they don’t want anyone else to see—focusing on the calm she feels. Her spine, once as taut as a piano wire, is as soft as her newly relaxed shoulders; her stomach has stopped churning, her heart no longer thumps in her chest like a panicked bumblebee caught in a glass jar. This must be how normal people feel all the time, Noa thinks, absolutely unaware of how utterly lucky they are.

She watches the chefs busy behind the counter, pulling pizzas—bubbling with cheese—out of ovens, sliding them onto flour-dusted surfaces, then drizzling lemon oil or balsamic glaze across toppings of thinly sliced squash or Parma ham. One chef, a tall, beautiful Italian (so Noa supposes), glances every few minutes at another chef—a voluptuous woman with long black bouncing curls, enormous brown eyes, and an air about her that suggests she’s somewhere else, not in the café rolling dough but standing in a wheat field in Italy with her face turned up to the sun. For a moment, Noa wonders what her secrets are, along with those of the man who watches her. Then she remembers that she can’t know these things anymore, that she’s blessedly and gloriously normal.

Noa glances back at the book in front of her,
Monet and the Impressionists,
and flicks through a few pages. The pictures begin to blend together as she stares at them, lost in thought, the pastel colors seeping into one another until Noa has to shut her eyes against the blur.

And then, in the next moment, Santiago is standing in front of her, speaking in a language she doesn’t understand, and smiling.

“Hi,” Noa says, trying to suppress the sparkle of her sudden delight, and finding, to her surprise, that she can. She has never before been able to conceal anything. Just as she’d suffered from always having to say everything she saw, this transparency had, perhaps inevitably, extended to her own thoughts and feelings as well. Noa has never been able to lie and she’s not entirely disconcerted to discover that she can now. As she arranges her face into a carefree smile, Noa experiences a rush of excitement, just as she imagines a baby must feel on finally learning to walk. She’s joined the world of adults, of fully functioning social beings; she can do everything they can do.

“
Olá, gata,
” Santiago says, sitting down in the chair opposite, blocking Noa’s view of the chefs. “How are you?”

“Happy,” Noa says, “and now happier still.”

Santiago smiles. “What are you reading?”

Noa flips the book closed so he can read the cover. “It’s for my essay on Monet and his position in the French Impressionist movement of the late nineteenth century.”

“Ah,” Santiago says. “Sounds fascinating.”

Noa nods. “It is.”

Santiago stands again. “Would you like cake with your coffee?” He takes a few steps toward the counter. Then, suddenly, he turns back and leans toward her across the table, fixing her with those deep brown eyes. Noa holds her breath.

“Unless…?”

Noa exhales. “What?”

“Unless you’d like to come home with me, for something better than cake?”

Noa hides a smile. “Better than cake? How’s that possible? I hope you’re not selling yourself too high.”

“Well, I suppose you’ll have to be the judge of that.”

“Yes, I suppose I will.” Noa grins, unable to hold in her joy any longer. “But, I’d better warn you, I have very high standards.”

Noa can hardly believe what she’s saying, even given her past propensity for saying absolutely everything she’s thinking. She has no standards. She’d have nothing to compare Santiago to.

“That’s good,” he says, “I like a woman with high standards.”

“Ah, and just how many women have evaluated you?”

Santiago smiles. “A few.”

“More than that, I imagine.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well then,” Noa says, standing. “Let’s see if practice makes perfect.”

It takes only ten minutes to reach Santiago’s house, and another five to reach his bed, but to Noa, who’s been anticipating this moment since the night he painted her, it feels like ten hours. He’d only kissed her that night and, since the intimacy of what they’d done together had felt so deep, it had been more than enough. Now, however, Noa can hardly wait.

When they are both naked, Santiago lays Noa down on his bed and begins drawing his tongue in tiny circles down her neck to her collarbone. By the time he reaches the dip between her breasts, Noa can no longer find the strength to care about her safety, all she cares about is this second, feeling Santiago’s chest against her, his legs between her legs, his hands in her hair. All she can think of is how she’s never felt a man touch her like this: his tongue warm and wet and slow in one moment, then cold and quick in the next, her skin tingling under his fingertips, her body opening with every touch until all Noa wants in the world is to have him inside her.

—

Héloïse gathers her long skirt, lifting the linen so she can see the blossom petals scattered in soft blankets along the pavements. May is her favorite month of the year, when thousands of flowers all over the city burst into bloom and the naked winter branches of the trees are suddenly, one morning, clothed in circles of pink and white. Last year she missed spring. Sitting in a dark house with the curtains drawn turned every day into winter. She’s so glad she didn’t miss spring a second time.

As Héloïse walks along Bridge Street, her step feels so light she fears she might be floating and she glances down at her feet to be sure they’re still on firm ground. Before François died, before life folded in on itself, Héloïse had to be careful to contain her effervescence around ordinary people, because whenever she was flooded with emotion her body did things that weren’t entirely normal. From the moment she was born, Héloïse took an extra special delight in the world. When she first opened her eyes, the brightness of the light had made her blink. When she’d taken her first breath, the sweetness of the air had made her splutter. When her mother’s fingers touched her fresh skin, the warmth had made her shiver. When the chatter of voices tickled her ears, she’d giggled. So it had been on that first day of life, and every day after that. Until François died. Yet, day by day, she can feel her sense of delight slowly starting to return.

“
C’est un beau matin
,” Héloïse says, expecting his answer to be in agreement. She’s a little surprised, even though she hasn’t heard François during the day lately, when he doesn’t answer at all.

Héloïse takes her time along Silver Street, dipping her toes in and out of the blossoms, smiling as they puff up in tiny clouds around the hem of her skirt. She almost wants to run to the market, eager to see what fresh books Ben has acquired for her. But the pull of the petals slows her down, bringing her back to the warm spring breeze and the smatterings of color on every patch of grass she passes.

Walking slowly means it takes nearly half an hour to get from Magrath Avenue to the Market Square and, when she arrives, Héloïse can feel the tips of her fingers buzzing with excitement and desire to hold their next favorite book. It’s only when she’s standing at the stall, skimming her impatient hands over the covers of secondhand books, that Héloïse realizes she’s holding her breath. Exhaling, she takes a fresh breath, filling her lungs with the deliciously musty smell of love and literature emanating from the old books.

Catching sight of two young lovers kissing on a book cover, Héloïse is surprised to find herself wondering if she will ever experience love again. Is it possible that her heart might one day be patched up again—the cracks healed, albeit with scars still showing? It’s extraordinary to Héloïse that she can even entertain the idea of feeling anything for another man, of letting a stranger take up a square inch of space in her heart when for thirty-seven years François has had permanent residence there.

“Morning, Lou.” Ben sidles up. “Isn’t it a beautiful one?”

Héloïse pulls her gaze away from the books to smile at Ben.“It is.”

“I’ve got something for you.” Ben reaches under the tall wooden stool he’s sitting on, pulls out a brown paper bag, and passes it over to her. Héloïse opens it.

“
A Moveable Feast
,” she reads. “I’ve not read Hemingway before.”

“You’ll love it. I promise you that, or your money back.”

“
Parfait
.” Héloïse laughs. “It’s a deal.”

She stands at the stall, her gaze flitting over the books before her, their spines turned up so she can read all their titles. This is how she knows, in the absence of Ben’s specific recommendations, which ones are for her. Some might think Héloïse shallow, selecting all her literature on the basis of titles and covers, but actually her instinct and intuition are so finely tuned these are the only clues she needs. Héloïse has never needed Ben’s help at all in selecting the books she’ll love, but she lets him because it brings them both pleasure. It’s something she’s missed, this sense of connection with a similar soul and her own intuition.

After buying
A Moveable Feast
, Héloïse stays awhile, just to be among the books and the chatter of the customers as they greet Ben, taking his recommendations and discussing their favorite authors. She never fails to be astonished at how well read he is, far more than any of her fellow professors and, indeed, anyone else she’s ever met.

Ben, and his father before him, has always been the main reason Héloïse buys her literature from the bookstall, rather than visiting one of the shops on the high street or the many university libraries. She had to frequent the latter for work, for obscure texts on French literature, but for everything else she’d always gone to the stall. Héloïse has always been drawn to used books far more than new ones. She loves to hold them and wonder who else has done so; she’s excited to find notes in the margins or pages folded over, showing that someone has loved this particular moment of the story especially. Secondhand books have a sense of history, a smell of a life well lived that their newly minted counterparts do not. This is why Héloïse gathers them around her like strangers who tell their most intimate secrets.

It’s not until she’s in bed—it having now settled nicely next to the bay window—that night that Héloïse finally opens
A Moveable Feast
. She begins just before nine o’clock, and at one o’clock in the morning she’s finished. It’s not simply the memoir that has her so captivated, it’s the annotations in the margins. In tiny dark green script, someone has composed a complete and complex commentary of their opinions, thoughts, and feelings on the book…

Where Hemingway had written:
People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself
, the green pen had added:
Yes! Yet so few realize the power they have to decide their own happiness. And though it’s always initially easier, more effortless to be sad than happy, it takes just the same amount of energy to maintain either state
.

Hemingway:
All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Green pen:
Isn’t it so often the case that we lose the power and purpose of our speech scurrying about with so many sentences, trying to find our point. The fewer words we use, the more closely people will listen when we say them.

Hemingway:
There you could always go into the Luxembourg Museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry.

Green pen:
Yes, if one is too full of food, one cannot feel so much. But, of course, if one is too hungry then one is too distracted by the desire for food to feel much of anything else either. Just being on the edge of hungry, then, is best to experience what H. did.

And so it went on.

Handwriting covers every page and, when Héloïse has at last deciphered the final green line and letter, she’s shocked and delighted to discover that she shares every single opinion, thought, and feeling.

—

George can barely contain his excitement. How did this happen? How does he have a date—is it a date? He certainly hopes so—with the beautiful and supremely talented Cosima Rubens? He’s not entirely certain it is a date; after all, she’s still technically married and, given his long history of romantic disappointment, he wonders if he might have got it wrong. He’s also not exactly sure how they went so suddenly from being friendly acquaintances to potential partners, but for some reason it feels sort-of-right, so he’s prepared to go with it. And there is the plenitude of chocolate and pistachio cream cupcakes to consider.

Reaching the closed café, George adjusts his tie, straightens his jacket, and brushes his sweaty palms on his thighs, then knocks on the glass door. A moment later, Cosima opens it.

“Hey there, George.” She steps back. “Come in.”

“Thank you.” He walks into the empty café, then sees the table she’s set up for them: atop a white linen tablecloth is a spread of treats that makes George salivate: tomato breads, zucchini blossom pizza, vanilla cannoli, Sicilian salad, red wine, and, of course, a plate of chocolate and pistachio cream cupcakes.

“Oh,” George gasps. “Is this for me? Incredible.”

Nervous, Cosima steps over to the table and picks up a cupcake and starts to gobble it up. Cakes, even unenchanted ones, have always had a wonderfully soporific effect on her. George watches as her teeth sink into the dark green pistachio cream, as her lips disappear until she pulls the cake away and chews slowly and nods, closing her eyes. George stares at Cosima’s lips, half-covered with cream and cake crumbs, and thinks he has never seen a more beautiful sight. How can a woman be quite so beautiful, so sensual, so unbelievably and utterly irresistible? How can he be quite so lucky?