Three Women in a Mirror (15 page)

There were drops of sweat on the nurse's brow, proof of his emotion. She even thought she could hear his heart beating faster.

Suddenly he stood up straight and leapt six feet away from her.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” he stammered.

She remained calm, as if she had not even noticed his movement away from her.

“Don't you want to sleep with me?” she whispered, indolent and lascivious, her tone that of a woman you don't say no to.

Crimson, he cried out, “That's the wrong question!”

Baffled, she didn't know what to say. She thought of stopping the whole scene right there, but she wanted to know what was going on. Her eyes round, she gave him a doubting look.

“And what would be the right question?”

Ethan, not realizing how out of sync he was, said with maniacal precision: “The right question would be, Why do you, Anny, want to sleep with me?”

She lost her temper.

“What you mean? Because everyone dreams of sleeping with me! I have yet to be cast as a nun or an old maid. Shit, I'm sexy, last I heard! Every day my agent gets dozens of letters from men who would like nothing better than to screw me. Messages from women, too. As a rule it's not my IQ that people are after.”

“I'm not talking about other people, I'm talking about you. Why would you, Anny Lee, want to sleep with me?”

She totally misunderstood what he meant.

“Oh, it doesn't bother me at all that you're a nurse, I'm not a snob.”

She was about to add, “If you saw the list of my lovers, it's not exactly high society, anything but, between the DJs, barmen and masseurs, and the . . . ” but then she realized that such details would not exactly further her cause.

He shook his head.

“You're still not listening. I'm not asking you what perverse social criterion would induce a movie star to hit on a nurse's aide, but why would you, Anny, want to sleep with me, Ethan?”

Annoyed with her own lack of subtlety, she counterattacked: “This is starting to get complicated, Ethan. After all, it's only natural for a woman to sleep with a man.”

“In your opinion; because you change men the way you change your shirt. But not in my opinion.”

“Aha, so maybe you don't fancy me?”

“Yes, I fancy you all right. I think about you a lot, I enjoy seeing you, I only want good things for you, I . . . But why do you want to sleep with me?”

Reassured by the fact he had admitted he was attracted to her, she now took the time to listen to his question and reflect on it. After thoroughly considering her thoughts, she concluded, “I always sleep with all the men I meet.”

“Why?”

“It's easier that way.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow. She confirmed with her chin. Yes, that was the best way she could put it: she had always found that her relations with men had to include at least one trip to the bed. She gave an emphatic shrug of her shoulders and said, “Sex just makes things easier.”

He rushed over to her, eyes burning, his face right up against hers.

“Easier for what? To get closer to a man or to get rid of him?”

Once the wolf had disappeared into the woods, Anne remained transfixed by the bank of the river. Her senses had been aroused by the danger and were now extremely vigilant; distraught with fear, she could not calm her pulse, and her muscles were tensed—her body was still mobilized against her will, as if in response to an assault.

After an interlude as long as it was intense, she managed to stretch, shake her limbs, smile and take a deep breath. She threw her head back and gazed at the starry sky.

Only the moon is safe from the wolf
, went the proverb.

The moon, and I.

What would she do now? It was after midnight and she did not have the courage to walk all the way to Bruges, to deal with the watchman's wariness, to knock on her aunt's door and explain herself yet again . . . Despite her hunger and the cold, it was better to stay outside.

With heavy steps she walked to the trees, chose an oak—the cousin of the one that had once sheltered her—and fell asleep, peacefully, as if the darkness no longer contained any threat.

On awakening, before the rooster's crow, Anne felt rested despite the short night. The sun was such a fine reward as it lit the sky—like a servant opening the curtains so that her mistress could enjoy the daylight. Anne delighted in the dawn.

Once again, action was required: she must go to the water's edge to wait for the wolf, because he had vanished before she had time to carry out the second part of her mission.

Although she had no more food for him, she was not afraid; not only did she trust the animal, she knew that a wolf can live off a single meal for several days.

The wolf soon appeared. When their eyes met, he showed no sign of surprise; no doubt he had already sniffed out Anne's presence.

As a matter of principle, he raised his hackles against her on his back and neck, and bared his fangs, staring at her with his imperious eyes.

She lowered her brow and closed her eyes, all humility and docility.

Motionless, he asserted his domination over her.

Then suddenly he relaxed, moved forward with a joyful lope, sniffed her fingers, and even grazed her skin with his damp snout.

She smiled at him. He understood the sign.

They both drank at the river as noisily as possible, as if it were a contest, then Anne got to her feet.

The wolf showed his surprise; perhaps he had not imagined she would be so tall—until then he had only seen her crouching down. Anne did not give him time to think, and with a great deal of determination she said, “Come with me, I have a few things to show you.”

And she walked away without looking behind her.

At first she could not hear any noise—he refused to follow—but then she could make out the sounds of a nimble stride: the wolf caught up, passed her. Since he wanted to be the head of the pack and decide which way to go, she pretended to go along with him; however, using subtle delaying tactics, changing direction ever so slightly, she managed to make him go where she wanted.

When a vast farm came into view, she stopped and hid.

Instinctively, the wolf did the same.

With a stick in her hand she continued on her way, crawling along the ground, dragging herself with her elbows until she reached a pile of leaves that looked anything but natural.

“Look,” she murmured.

She held the stick above the pile of leaves, then lowered it.

There was the sound of a spring snapping, then something rose up and two steel jaws closed fiercely around the stick.

Frightened, the wolf growled and recoiled, preparing to attack the device.

“You see, these are wolf traps. Traps against you. You must learn how to detect them, and never go near.”

He continued to snarl, revealing his frothing gums.

“You need not fear this trap anymore, I've ruined it.”

The wolf turned to look at Anne, and cocked his head to the right. She repeated her words, he whimpered, and she said them again, as if it were important for him to know the words.

“Wolf trap.”

Heads down, so that the dogs and the peasants would not see them, they crawled cautiously along the carpet of grass on the ground.

Anne triggered three more traps.

Each time, the wolf jumped, moved restlessly, wildly, but each time he seemed to understand better.

The fourth time he was the one who showed the trap to Anne, ears pointed, tail erect, fangs bared.

She deactivated the jagged pincers with a log.

“Do you understand?”

Seated on his powerful hind legs, he eyed her, his silence transmitting a muffled indignation:
What do you think I am? If my survival is at stake, I'm a quick learner.

She also looked for meatballs that had been poisoned with arsenic or filled with pieces of glass, but during their walk found none.

They went back to the river as though it were home. They quenched their thirst, then Anne bade farewell to the wolf: “No more men or women or children, I beg you, ever again. If you respect them, then they will not be so cruel with you.”

When she got to her feet the wolf understood that she was leaving, and proudly, like a lover who refuses to be left, he decided to be the first to go. Bounding along on his sharp claws, the huge animal disappeared into a cluster of tall trees.

Anne went back toward the road to Bruges.

She walked for hours. Several times to her left she heard a twig snap, or a pebble roll; because she knew it was him, she honored their implicit pact and was careful not to show anything, while the wolf, hiding a few yards away, pretended not to be accompanying her.

When Bruges appeared at last, with its elaborate roofs and opulent belfry for intimidating travelers, Anne felt ambivalent: while she was looking forward to seeing her family, she already missed the clearing, the night, the river, and the proximity of the wolf. In spite of the danger and the harshness of life in the woods, she preferred life in nature to life in society; she felt better there, she felt free, without people's judgment bearing down on her shoulders, ineradicably. Between earth and sky, with no walls to oppress her, she asked herself fewer questions; she even found some answers.

Anne rubbed the mud from her dress, scraped clean her shoes, quickly arranged her hair and then, taking a deep breath, walked past the watchman and into the town.

She knew Aunt Godeliève would be full of sharp reproach; she had aggrieved the good woman and she would give her further cause to lament when she refused to confess to her escapade, because no one would understand her pact with the wolf.

No sooner had she come out onto the Grand-Place than she sensed people were looking at her askance, and she heard a growing murmur around her.

“That's her,” whispered a water bearer.

“No, she's older,” answered a vegetable man, pushing his wheelbarrow.

“No, that's her, I say, the young woman they've been talking about, I've known her for months,” added a fishermen.

Anne lowered her head, stared at her feet, and hurried ahead. Could it be that they still hadn't forgotten? Were they going to talk about her broken engagement with Philippe until the end of time? She had been under the impression that, with the arrival of the wolf and the damage he had done the previous month, her own story had become old news.

Her neck stiff, her eyes focused on the cobblestones, seeing the façades only as they were mirrored in the water of the canal, she was so careful to avoid meeting the gazes of her fellow citizens that she bumped into several of them.

Hold out until the house. Don't speak to anyone
.

A voice called out, forcefully: “It's her! It's Anne! She's the one who was spared by the wolf!”

Anne froze and looked up. Standing on a barrel was Rubben the draper's son, the lad who had organized the battue, and now he was pointing right at her.

All around her passersby stopped and stared.

Rubben went on, exultant, “The hungry wolf went for her, but she stopped him. She spoke to him. He listened to her. In the end she convinced him not to devour her, and the wolf went off into the forest.”

Women and children looked at Anne with admiration. A handful of men still wondered it such a thing were possible.

Rubben changed his expression and his tone; shaking with emotion, he mumbled, “It's a miracle.”

In the crowd, some people went down on their knees. All of them crossed themselves.

Their reactions eventually filled Anne with panic. She was trembling in the presence of her fellow citizens, more terrified than when she had faced the wolf.

February 29, 1906

 

Gretchen,
Let me tell you about an adventure so strange that perhaps you won't believe me. Truthfully, if I hadn't been the one to experience it, I . . .

Where to begin?

Oh, my Gretchen, from my disorderly handwriting, the way I am distorting my letters, you can see how my hand is trembling. My brain can't put three coherent sentences together. I can't get over what happened. As for putting it down on paper . . .

Chin up. I have to. It is so . . .

Come now, Hanna, some determination, leave your scruples behind and out with the facts.

Right, where to begin?

Oh, I already said that . . .

Dear Lord, I'll just have to tell it any old way, as it comes.

Last Monday was my due date. Vienna has never seen a woman more enormous than I; in nine months my belly turned into a pointed missile; it entered the room several seconds before I did, out of breath, in a sweat, and with my fists pressed against my lower back. For weeks the weight on my lower back has been unendurable—on my bladder even more so—so, in spite of my happiness at being pregnant, I was pawing the ground, waiting to be delivered.

According to the von Waldberg women, my gigantic belly meant without a doubt that I was expecting a boy. According to my physician, Dr. Teitelman, the size was due to an excessive production of placenta.

“Hanna, you have given your baby such fine accommodation—as luxurious as your Viennese palace. I can hardly hear the heartbeat when I put my ear to it.”

He told me to step back onto the scale.

“Incredible . . . if we go simply by the needle, I would reckon that the baby you are carrying weighs twelve pounds.”

“Twelve pounds?”

“Yes.”

“What does a baby weigh?”

“A normal one between four and six pounds. A fat one perhaps seven or eight.”

“And mine weighs twelve pounds?”

The doctor burst out laughing.

“Yes, a sort of giant.”

I began shouting, “It will be a butchery! I'll never manage to get it out! The birth will be horrible . . . You will have to cut open my stomach.”

“A Cesarean? No, I don't approve of that. In my opinion, Cesareans should only be performed on dead women.”