Sarah Bynum - Madeleine Is Sleeping

No; he is having difficulty with his butterfly tie. And suddenly Adrien seems to remember what it is that he is supposed to do. His eyes brighten; he steps forward with courage; he lifts his arm and — like that — it falls away from him, his clumsiness and coarseness and bewilderment, it all falls away, like the sleeve of a dressing gown as a young woman raises her hand to brush her hair, exposing the whiteness of her forearm, her elbow— like that, his purpose is revealed, that beautifully. He must fix the flatulent man’s tie. And his face no longer resembles that of the sleepwalker, or the opium eater; his face is that of a man who must tilt M. Pujol’s chin, with all the tenderness in the world, and arrange the wing-like folds of his white evening tie.

she lets the curtain fall. She stands there in the darkness, panting. Memory will not adjust to this: the pulse, the stirring, of new organs. Her desire draws out its feelers, and unfolds its sticky wings.

never — not when the prince kissed the princess, nor the priest laid the host upon one’s tongue, not when Madeleine gripped the despondent member of M. Jouy, nor when Papa held Maman in the dark, not the brothers and sisters pressing their small, hot hands against the sleeping girl — has a person touched another with such tender concentration. And in his touch there is not the kindness, the abnegation, of the abbot tending to the wounded Michel: here, there are no ministrations, no saints; no blazing suns, no attendant moons. There is only this perfect reciprocity — two stars in orbit, two flowers unfolding — an exchange of pleasure unlike that she has ever seen. She watches how his fingers float over the crooked tie, the pale throat, the apple bumping along its narrow path, and it is as if this gesture has never before existed, has only now been invented by dint of his hunger. He must teach his hands, his fingers, to do that which is utterly strange to them. And to defy habit in this way— what force is great enough? How shabby, how halfhearted, her own mutiny now seems. So what force? Madeleine does not know. She knows only that the sight of it could impale her. That she could part the curtains and watch, swooning, as the gesture is performed again and again.

AND SO THE CURTAIN IS lifted. As she looks once more on the scene inside, she thinks of a violinist tucking his instrument beneath his chin. Behold: M. Pujol is pressing his cheek upon the photographer?! hand. The hand is resting, like a violin, against his collarbone. He does not rub his cheek against the hand, as though it were the rabbit trimming on a coat, nor does he dig his chin into the flesh, like a half-wit who wants nothing more than to sink his face into the warmth of his own shoulder. He simply holds the hand against him, and in his touch is the impatience with which musicians handle their instruments. He closes his eyes. He takes a breath. It is all about to begin.

then, in her emotion, in her extreme but vague excitement, it happens — Madeleine makes a wheezing sound. If there is a nestling in her hands, she will fondle it to death. If there is a reflection in a pool, she will peer too closely, lose her balance, splash through it with her boots. Her rough hands, her muddy boots, and the wing? thrashing savagely inside her, sending up this wheeze, this strange whistling sound. The hand retreats. The two men step away from each other. They look about them slowly, blinking sleepily like children. To her relief, to her anguish, they do not see her.

they DO not see me! Claude rejoices, silently; For everything about him now is silent: his thoughts, his beating heart, his footfalls in the underbrush. He can tiptoe past all sorts of doors and nobody inside would know it. He seems to be mastering invisibility as well, for look: how close to the girls he crouches! So close that if he were to sneeze and not cover his mouth, they would each of them feel, on their necks and their cheeks, a satiny mist, like one coming off the sea. Claude is that close to them. He has crept there silently. His invisible body trembles in its joy and proximity. It will be his at last, the secret. He alone will know what happens when the girls all disappear. For a moment, in the underbrush, he imagines how he will raise his hand, and stand, and issue a statement, or file a report. He imagines the magisterial weight of approval, the heaviness of men’s palms clapping him on the shoulder. But then, easing a ticklish branch to one side, he pictures another possibility: that of nursing his secret, hiding it ‘M from sight, taking it out in the dark and stroking it, keeping it for the enjoyment of Claude alone. But how to get that meaty one to move — her hips now occupy the whole of his view. As she sways back and forth in her eagerness, he catches only slivers of what he wants to see, which is maybe more maddening than not being able to see at all, and certainly more exciting than being able to see everything at once. He glimpses a pair of tentative hands, reaching out; a scattering, on pale skin, of petals; the flash of a mirror in the sunlight; the pucker of a navel. Could that be right? Naked skin? A belly button?

the mayor clears his throat. He pushes aside his plate. He regards his youngest daughter, who is chewing her bread enthusiastically, and not giving him any encouragement at all. I am an indulgent father, he begins. “Which is a fine beginning; which is what he rehearsed. Firsdy: his affectionate nature and dislike of tyranny; secondly: his public obligations; thirdly: the strange reports that have lately reached him, of sightings, and silences, and the odd, glittering look in his youngest daughter’s eye, the bits of grass seen caught in her hair; and fourthly: he cannot remember fourthly. Emma, he says. And notices, as he often does, the stubbiness of her fingers. It would be quite impossible to pry those fingers from anything they might decide to grasp. One day, he expects, they will lengthen into cool, slender, white fingers, from which will issue all sorts of gende touches and the pretty, even handwriting that he sees on invitations. As it stands, her lettering is heavy on the page, and executed with the same methodical relish with which she is now sawing off another piece of bread. But yes, her fingers will lengthen, and her complexion will not be so swarthy, and little curlicues will bloom upon the barren slopes of her alphabet. Emma, he says again, and because her mouth is full, she reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. Yes, Papa, I am listening, is what her stubby fingers say. With warmth, and great insistence; and what a very pleasant feeling it is to be gripped by such fingers, and to know that nothing could ever tear you from their hold. The mayor finds himself thinking that perhaps it would not be so terrible were his daughter to remain always like this: this small, this brown and sturdy, like a jug. I am an indulgent father, he repeats, helplessly, and he can go no further.

the mayor’s eldest daughter is more to the point. Circling around the table, dishes balanced dangerously in one hand, she sees a butter knife making its way towards the jar of preserves. Aha! she cries, grabbing with her free hand her sister’s brown wrist, the butter knife flashing wildly like a fish twisting in a beak. Let go, Emma says. I’m still eating. No, her sister says. You let go. Let go of the knife. But Emma is not yet finished with her breakfast. She would like to spread some jam on her last piece of bread. If she cannot spread her jam, like a lady, she will simply have to dunk her crust into the jar itself. So, forgetting the knife, she reaches out to grasp the lovely, golden, glowing jar that sings its siren song from across the table. The eldest daughter perceives with alarm the younger’s intent. The cudery clatters, the dishes sway. Take these! The mayor finds himself responsible for the china. And still pinching the brown wrist in one hand, his eldest daughter confiscates the treacherous jampot. She holds it up above her head, away from the clamorous hands of her sister, and looks down, as if from a great height, at her father’s puzzled face. Don’t you see? she asks.