Interstitial #2
I’m writing in the first moments of dawn, when the world is still wrapped in dreams. From my window, I watch the circling of the peregrines, those sleek and canny predators.
They’ve built nests around the archways of the town.
I see them tackling lesser birds, beaks wet with the viscera of their prey.
The metaphor is too stark, even for my artistic tastes.
So many have evacuated this adopted country of mine, chased by the persecution of an evil that breathes its foul breath down the neck of humanity.
But I stay, I hide from the clomping of boots and the bellicose thud of rifles on cobblestone.
Why this torture, this inexcusable danger?
I tell myself I am not done with France. I am not done with her.
During that spring of 1936, my friendship with Justine blossomed under the golden sunlight. As the clement days gave way to
the roar of summer, we saw each other more often, rarely going a day without meeting in the parlor of Maison de Notre Rêve
or in the cottage.
Justine seemed utterly callous to class divisions; she immediately saw me as an equal, which was no small thing. Together,
we adventured across the city and beyond, often biking through the valley as a windswept duo, scattering laughter and songs
in our wake. She had a way of muffling the terrible voices, a feat that no one had accomplished since Ng?c. I no longer wanted to race toward destruction. Why should I, when life had become an embrace, rather than a shove, a violence
to be borne?
Under Justine’s insistence, I extended my stay at Maison de Notre Rêve past the original two weeks. Months went by, and we
did not talk again about me leaving. The truth was: I would not have been able to bear parting. I held my breath, like a child
begging for a lofty boon. Still, supplicant that I was, I could not help wanting more.
I remember the first time we expressed our affection openly.
We’d spent a soggy afternoon exploring the grounds. Tired, we flopped into the barn behind the house. Hay stuck out from Justine’s
curls, giving her the appearance of a scarecrow, but no dishevelment could mar her.
In the loft of the barn, we found a litter of mewing kittens, tiny maws working to find succor.
They were each so wily and round and dear, bouncing like orange dervishes around their exhausted mama.
Justine named them after French monarchs.
Louis and Philip and Eleanor and silly, fat Clovis.
I called Justine the La Reine Chaton, the Kitten Queen, because she seemed the most incorrigible of them all.
“Well then,” she said, dimpling. “If I’m to be a cat, you will be my wild horse. Independent, fierce. Impossible to tame.
My Cheval Sauvage.”
I’d never loved a name so much, nor wanted to live up to one more. Wildness felt possible again. After I left my hometown,
I existed as if boxed in by steel walls that followed me wherever I went, a permanent prison of guilt and terror and doubt.
Now I’d been released. Justine was the one who unlocked the door and led me into the sunshine.
Which is all to say that in a very short time, we became everything to each other. How could we help it? The world had conspired
to weave its gossamer strands of feeling around us, tightening so imperceptibly that we did not know what was happening until
it was too late.
I will stop here. From tiredness, yes—my body, that insufficient vessel—but also because I wish to prolong the story. For
a few more moments, I’ll allow myself to linger in the memory of a summer of stolen joy. The falcons will have to wait.
May 13, 1943
One day in the first weeks of June, the Chaton and I decided to take a day trip to the aqueduct in Barbegal. I’d never seen
it, and she insisted that the structure was a feat of Roman engineering. She was curious about all things architectural—an
extension of her enthusiasm for art, I suppose. The aqueduct sounded tiresome to me, but I would go anywhere with her.
Allard was still away in Germany—increasingly, she told me, his business took him there—and his prolonged absence left us giddy as children dismissed from the gloom of their nursery.
We were prone to misbehavior of the mildest sort.
Harmless pranks on the dowdy-faced priest who regarded me with suspicion; stolen snacks from her very own larder.
She reminded me of my sister, who saw hilarity in even the most banal circumstance. Some people are born darlings of the universe,
and the rest of us can only watch them as satellites apart, jealous and admiring.
Before we left for the aqueduct, the Chaton gave me a translation of Nightwood, a new novel by a female writer that was all the rage overseas. There was a particular heat in her expression as she made
me promise to read it. Though I didn’t often turn to books for diversion, I agreed—for her. I could tell she disdained those
who failed to see the value in reading, so, as usual, I committed myself to becoming worthy of her.
She pressed her lips to the front cover, as a kind of benediction. I knew the book would become my prized possession, if only
because it bore the ghost of her kiss.
When we arrived at the stone complex, she twirled under the great arches. The ground was rough, but her feet caroused with
the blithe grace of a dancer. She held her hand out to me and I joined her.
“It’s as if we’re priestesses at moonlight, conducting an ancient ritual,” she said.
Her expression was one of complete radiance. My longing had grown great, but I was powerless to act on it. She was married.
And we could never be anything but friends. I shoved my need for her—exigent, fierce—aside.
“A ritual for rain?” I gave her a rare smile. It was for her that I hoarded my joy.
She stepped closer. “A ritual for love.”
The shock of her nearness ran through my body. I didn’t dare breathe. She leaned her forehead on mine.
We’d touched many times, as friends walking together, our fingers grazing when I poured her coffee, our knees knocking under
the table. But this touch was not incidental, and the weight of that realization rested between us. Our mouths lay inches
apart.
I was the one who pulled away. When one becomes accustomed to thwarted desire, one balks at the threat of false hope. She
tilted her head, a question in her gaze. The next moment, I heard a loud rumble. Thunder? No. There was a flash of gray behind
her left shoulder, hooves pounding through the dust nearby.
“Look,” I cried, hands on her arms, pivoting her so she could see. “The Camargue horses!”
There were two, galloping side by side, their legs gliding effortlessly across the rocky terrain, manes shot with sunlight.
They loped in loose circles around each other, small and free. I was reminded of Muybridge’s locomotion photography, how stillness
and movement can be immortalized all at once.
“How apt. More chevals sauvage.” She smiled, winding an arm around my waist.
I knew at that moment that I wanted to paint the Chaton riding on a Camargue horse, her hair unpinned, the shapely arches
of her feet dangling from its flank. Bare skin, silken and pink, rubbing against the bristle of the horsehair. Nothing had
stirred my painterly eroticism so much, before or since that image. I blushed hotly.
That was when I saw the truth—I wanted to paint no one but her. My creatures, my monsters, were nothing compared to this woman.
Justine would be my muse, even if no one knew. Especially not her.
“What’s wrong?” the Chaton asked, observing my agitation.
“Nothing, nothing. The heat. Look, there are no riders.”
“They’ve broken away from the herd.”
“I hope they are never found then. They seem so happy on their own.”
“I envy them. They never have to pretend to be anything they aren’t.”
A teardrop fell onto her cheek. Despite myself, I reached a hand over and whisked it away with my thumb. God forgive me but
I loved her more in her despair. Her sadness created an anteroom of the heart, a velveteen umbra where we could be shielded
from prying eyes.
Among the wild horses and my own desire, I could convince myself that no one would find us.
I kissed the drying streak.
Then I kissed her.