The Woman With the Bouquet (4 page)

In short, I found myself making fun of the enthusiasm I had had that morning, considering myself half insane. In the middle of the afternoon, almost resigned, I went for a walk along the shore with Bobby, the spaniel I had at the time; there too, in spite of everything, I found myself staring at the sea to make sure there wasn’t some miracle taking place . . . Because of the wind, there were hardly any ships offshore, and no one on the beach.

I was making my way slowly, resolved to drown my disappointment in fatigue. My dog, who had understood that our stroll would be a long one, unearthed an old toy to play with me.

He began to bound toward the dune where I had thrown his missile, when suddenly he recoiled as if he had been stung, and began to bark.

I tried in vain to calm him down, checked beneath his pads to make sure he hadn’t been stung by some insect, then I made fun of him openly, and went myself to pick up the ball.

A man came out of the bushes.

He was naked.

When he saw my consternation, with a strong hand he seized a clump of grasses and placed them in front of his sex.

“Young lady, please, don’t be afraid.”

Far from being afraid, I was thinking of something else altogether. The truth was that I found him so strong, so virile, so incredibly desirable that it took my breath away.

He held out his hand in entreaty, as if to reassure me regarding his intentions.

“Would you help me, please?”

I noticed that his arm was trembling.

“I’ve lost my clothing,” he stuttered.

No, he was not trembling, he was shivering.

“Are you cold?” I asked.

“A bit.”

The understatement was proof that he was well brought up. I was trying to think of a quick solution.

“Would you like me to go and get you some clothes?”

“Oh, please, yes . . .”

In the meantime I worked out how long it would take me.

“The problem is that I need two hours, one to go, one to come back; by then you’ll be frozen. Particularly as the wind is picking up and night is about to fall.”

Without further ado, I untied the cape I had been wearing as a coat.

“Listen, put this on and follow me. That’s the best way.”

“But . . . you’ll get cold.”

“Go on, I still have a shirt and a sweater, whereas you have nothing. In any case, I cannot possibly go along the beach with a naked man at my side. Either you take my cape, or you stay here.”

“I’ll wait here.”

“You’re so trusting,” I said with a laugh, because I suddenly realized how comical the situation was. “What if, once I get home, I don’t go back out?”

“You wouldn’t do that!”

“How do you know? Has anyone ever told you how I ordinarily treat the naked men I find in the bushes?”

It was his turn to burst out laughing.

“All right. I’ll take your cape, then, thank you.”

I went up to him and draped the cloth around his shoulders, so he wouldn’t risk revealing his sex on raising his hands.

Relieved, he wrapped himself up, although the woolen garment was not enough to cover his tall body.

“My name is Guillaume,” he said, as if he considered it time for an introduction.

“Emma,” I replied. “Let’s not talk anymore, and let’s go home as quickly as possible before the weather turns us into icebergs. Is that all right?”

We headed into the wind.

Once you assign a destination to your walking, there is no more unpleasant means of locomotion. Strolling aimlessly turns out to be a pleasure, but going from place to place seems interminable.

Fortunately, our strange couple did not run into anyone. As we were silent, I grew more and more intimidated by the minute, and hardly dared glance at my companion; I dreaded the wind might lift up the cloth and he might think my gaze was indiscreet. As a result, I made my way with effort, my shoulder blades were tense, my neck stiff.

Once we got back to the shelter of the Villa Circé, I wrapped him up in the afghan I had in the living room, rushed to the kitchen, and heated up some water. I was learning on the spot to be a good housewife, and I’m generally so clumsy and inept. While I was putting some cookies onto a plate, it occurred to me that I had just brought a stranger into my home on the very day when I did not have any servants about, but such petty mistrust annoyed me, and I returned briskly with my tray of steaming hot tea to the library.

He was waiting for me, smiling, shivering, curled up on the sofa.

“Thank you.”

Now I could take a closer look at him. His face was smooth, his eyes light, his hair long, curly and golden; his lips were full, and his neck sloped tenderly to strong shoulder joints. One of his feet was sticking out from the afghan, and I noticed his leg was smooth, tapering, hairless, like a marble from antiquity. My living room was hosting a Greek statue, the Antinous idolized by the Emperor Hadrian, that splendid young man who, out of melancholy, threw himself into the blue waters of the Mediterranean; now this morning he had just reemerged, intact, from the green waves of the North Sea. It made me shiver.

He misinterpreted my reaction.

“You are frozen because of me!” he said. “I’m truly sorry.”

“No, no, I’ll get over it quickly. Here, I’m going to light a fire.”

“Shall I help you?”

“Hands off! As long as you haven’t yet found a way to wear those afghans tied around you without danger of immodesty, I advise you to sit still on the sofa.”

I was usually very bad at getting a fire going, but now there were sparks, and very quickly violent flames were licking the logs while I poured the tea.

“I owe you an explanation,” he said, savoring the first sip.

“You don’t owe me anything and I despise explanations.”

“What happened, according to you?”

“I don’t know. I’ll improvise: you were born this morning, you emerged from the waves.”

“Or?”

“You were being transported on a cargo ship full of slaves on its way to the Americas, then the ship was attacked by pirates, and it sank in the harbor at Ostend, but, miraculously, you managed to slip out of your shackles to swim to shore.”

“Why was I reduced to slavery?”

“A terrible misunderstanding. A judicial error.”

“Oh, I see that you are on my side.”

“Absolutely.”

Cheered, he pointed to the thousands of books around us.

“Are you a reader?”

“Yes, I learned the alphabet a few years ago, and I’ve put it to good use.”

“It’s not the alphabet that gives you such an imagination . . .”

“I’ve been reproached so often for my imagination. As if it were a fault. What do you think?”

“In you, I find it adorable,” he whispered, with a troubling smile.

As a result, I fell silent. My inspiration had left me, giving way to anxiety. What on earth was I up to, all alone in my house, with a stranger whom I had found naked among the bushes? Logically, I should have been afraid. And, deep inside, I did have the feeling that I was facing danger.

I tried to rationalize things somewhat.

“How long had you been on the look-out for someone, hiding in the dunes?”

“For hours. I had already collared two women out strolling, before you. They ran away before I could disclose anything. I frightened them.”

“Your outfit, perhaps?”

“Yes, my outfit. And yet, it really was the simplest thing I could find.”

We both laughed wholeheartedly.

“It was all my own fault,” he continued. “I’ve been staying for a few weeks with my family not far from here, and this morning I felt the need to go for a swim. I left the car behind the dunes, in a place that would be easy to find again, and then because there was no one about, absolutely no one, I left my clothes under a stone and went for a long swim. When I came back to shore, I could find neither the stone, nor my clothes, nor the car.”

“Blown away? Stolen?”

“I’m not sure that I came back to the same spot after my swim, because I only vaguely recognized things. What could look more like sand than sand?”

“And more like a rock than a rock?”

“Exactly! So that is why I did not suggest we look for my car behind the dunes, because I have no idea where it is.”

“Absent-minded?”

“The desire to swim naked in the sea is irresistible. The call of the open ocean.”

“I understand.”

And it was true: I did understand him. I guessed that he must be a solitary soul, like myself, to feel such intense exaltation in nature. And yet, a doubt crossed my mind.

“You did intend to come back, did you not?”

“When I left, yes. When I was floating out there, no. I wanted it never to end.”

He looked at me closely then added, slowly, “I’m not the suicidal type, if that’s what you meant.”

“It was.”

“I flirt with danger, I seem to vibrate when I’m taking risks—probably some day I’ll do something foolhardy, and that will be it, but I have no desire to die.”

“So you have more of a desire to live?”

“That’s right.”

“And to run away . . .”

Touched by my comment, he pulled the afghan closer around him, as if to protect himself from my disturbing perspicacity.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“In your opinion?”

“My savior,” he murmured with a smile.

“But what else? Let’s see if you, too, have imagination.”

“Oh, I fear all I possess is the alphabet, not imagination.”

“What does it matter, who we are? You are just a magnificent living statue that I found on the beach, that I am thawing out, and that very soon I shall clothe, in order to restore it to its wife.”

He frowned.

“Why are you talking about a wife? I’m not married.”

“Excuse me, earlier on you mentioned . . .”

“My family. I’m staying here with my family. Parents, uncles, cousins.”

What an idiot! I had only tossed out my comments about how magnificent he was because I assumed he was married, and I was steaming with confusion, as if I were the immodest one now, standing naked before him. He looked at me closely, tilting his head to one side.

“And you . . . your husband isn’t here?”

“No. Not at present.”

He was hoping for a more detailed explanation. To give myself time to think, I hurried over to see to the fire . . . I was troubled to find how attracted I was to this man. I was in no hurry for him to leave; at the same time, I could not bring myself to tell him that I lived alone in this house. What if he were to take advantage . . . to take advantage to do what? I was not against the idea of him seducing me. Rob me? Judging by his outfit, he was more the type to be robbed than to rob. Molest me? He was not violent, no, that was unlikely.

Turning around, I questioned him abruptly: “Are you dangerous?”

“That depends . . . to fish, hare, pheasants: yes, because I go fishing and hunting. Other than that . . .”

“I despise hunters.”

“Then you must despise me.”

He was challenging me with a smile. I sat back down across from him.

“I’ll make you change your mind . . .”

“We’ve only known each other for a few minutes, and already you want to change me?”

“We don’t know each other at all.”

He readjusted the afghan over his shoulders and continued in a low voice, “To answer your question, you have nothing to fear from me. I’m very grateful to you for having gotten me out of a tight spot, and for not hesitating to open your door to me. But I am taking up your time . . . Would it be possible for me to make a phone call for them to come and get me?”

“Of course. Would you like to take a bath first? Just so you can get warm . . .”

“I didn’t dare ask.”

We stood up.

“And if you have some clothes . . .”

“Clothes?”

“Yes, a shirt, a pair of pants, I’ll send them back washed and ironed to you, naturally, I promise.”

“It’s just that . . . I don’t have any men’s clothes, here.”

“And your husband’s?”

“It’s that . . . I don’t have a husband.”

Silence fell between us. He smiled. So did I. I collapsed into my armchair like a disarticulated puppet.

“I’m sorry I don’t have a husband to help you out, but until now I had never realized that a husband might come in useful.”

He laughed and sat back down on the sofa.

“And yet a husband can come in very useful.”

“Oh, I can tell I’m not going to like what you’re about to say! Anyway, go ahead . . . of what possible use could a husband be to me? Go on, tell me . . .”

“To keep you company.”

“I have my books.”

“To take you to the beach.”

“I go with Bobby, my spaniel.”

“To hold the door for you, stepping politely aside when you go in.”

“I have no trouble with doors and I would not care for a husband who steps aside. No that’s not enough, what else might he be good for?”

“To hold you in his arms, and caress your neck, and kiss you.”

“Yes, that’s already better. And then?”

“And then, he would take you into a bed and make you happy.”

“Oh, really?”

“He would love you.”

“Would he know how?”

“It must not be difficult to love you.”

“Why?”

“Because you are an amiable person.”

In a way that was as irresistible as it was unconscious, we had come closer to each other.

“Do I need to marry a man to get that? Would an admirer not fill the role just as well?”

“Yes,” he conceded with a sigh.

Suddenly his face grew tense. He sat back abruptly, pulled a corner of cloth over him, stood back up, looked anxiously at the walls all around him then completely changed his voice and his tone.

“I am sorry, Mademoiselle, I am behaving badly with you. You are so charming that I have ignored the situation that has required your attention, and I have been taking inadmissible liberties. Forgive me, forget my attitude. Could you simply lead me to your bathroom?”

A newfound authority filled his voice; without hesitating, I obeyed him immediately.

Once he had gone into the bathtub, I promised him that some clothes would be waiting on the stool behind the door and I hurried to my room.