Daniyal Mueenuddin - In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

The ballet began — Nureyev’s choreography, the production finespun and brilliant. At first Helen had trouble following the story, which was darker and more adult than the version of Sleeping Beauty she had known; but gradually she became absorbed in the precision of the dancers’ movements. When the intermission came she blinked and for a moment didn’t know where she was.

The crowed stopped clapping, and the silence in the box became prolonged.

‘Well, it’s absolutely first-rate,’ said Rafia, with a finality that did not invite further opinion. She rose and positioned her shawl, flipping it around her neck in an economical little movement. Looking at Helen, touching her elbow to guide her out, she said, ‘I was watching you — I could see it all reflected in your face, the freshness of your impressions. I’m so glad you like it.’

They walked out onto the balcony, and Sohail drew Helen over to the banister, where they could see the crowd emerging from the orchestra.

‘I love you,’ he said, kissing her on the neck.

‘I love you too,’ she replied. Everything in this world seemed to her finer, more defined, more weighted. The lights blazed above them in immense chandeliers, and the people walking up the Garnier’s famous stair seemed themselves to be gravely dancing, moving in unison, chatting fluently and with choreographed gestures.

Standing behind her, Sohail whispered in her ear, ‘Let’s have a glass of champagne.’

The Harounis wanted coffee — ‘Your father’s falling asleep,’ said Rafia — and so the two couples separated.

Helen stood by a tall golden window overlooking the Place de l’Opéra, gazing back into the elaborately decorated room, watching Sohail approach with two flutes of champagne. She felt shy, her senses alive.

As the ushers came through to call the audience back into the hall, Sohail asked, ‘Can you find it? I have to go to the bathroom, I’ll be right there.’

Helen climbed the stairs to the curving wall set with the doors to the boxes. The first door she opened was wrong, and a strange couple stared at her, as if she were trying to slip into their seats. Confused, she peeked gingerly through the next door, which was half open. Stepping into the vestibule, she saw Rafia and Mr. Harouni seated together in the front seats, looking down at the orchestra, intimate in a way that she had not seen them before. She immediately sensed they were speaking about her.

‘I suppose that depends on who is being fascinated,’ said Mr. Harouni.

‘Not really,’ answered Rafia; and then: ‘Look at that couple, aren’t they superb. Look at the way she carries herself.’

Just then Sohail burst through the door behind Helen, his face splashed with water. ‘Hello, hello,’ he said, carrying Helen forward into the front of the box.

She felt naked and ashamed as Sohail’s father rose quickly from her seat. ‘Please, Mr. Harouni,’ she implored. ‘Please sit in front.’

He wouldn’t hear of it, and so she sat exposed by the bright lights until the curtain rose, studying a program, her face burning.

When the ballet ended Helen couldn’t look at Rafia and pretended to be fumbling with her little beaded purse. Her chest felt tight, and it all seemed false to her, the people shuffling down the staircase and out through the lobby, each one to a particular evening, the wood moldings painted gold, the massive and elaborate chandeliers. As they emerged into the cold Paris night she thought, It’s Christmas Eve .

Sohail and Helen decided to rent a car and spend New Year’s Eve out in the country. Upon their return to Paris the Harounis would be gone. Both felt constrained — in college they sometimes fought, as couples do, but each night they came back to each other. Helen would say, ‘Let’s not go to sleep angry,’ and they would stay up and talk and sometimes make love to drive away whatever had hurt them. But in the days following the ballet they had begun to guard their thoughts. They agreed it would be better in the country, in another place, staying in a little hotel room with a creaky bed and eating a country dinner in a rain-washed town overrun by cats — that was the way Sohail described it.

Sohail had seen his parents apart from Helen, respecting her desire to have a little space, as she put it. On Christmas Day they had dropped in at the Quai des Grands Augustins apartment to exchange presents, and saw the Harounis for coffee several days later at Rafia’s favorite café, La Palette.

As they were parting, Rafia said to Helen, ‘I’ll see Sohail in ten days. But let’s you and I meet for a girls’ tea, just to have a little time alone.’ She suggested the next afternoon at the HÂtel George V. Sohail and Helen would pick up their car the following day, early in the morning, and drive to the Loire Valley to celebrate New Year’s in Montrésor, which would be empty of tourists this time of year. They would walk along the little stream Sohail described and have champagne beside the pond at midnight.

Helen had brought to Paris the suit she bought for medical school interviews, a conservative blue jacket and knee-length skirt, and she wore this to tea, with cream-colored stockings and a fitted white T-shirt to make it less formal. She looked armored, cool, and efficient, exactly as she wanted to feel. After walking up Avenue George V, past decorous stores, under a warm sun, Helen was not intimidated by the liveried doorman who quickly assessed her and welcomed her in English. Although she had timed her arrival five minutes early, looking across the large airy room, she saw Rafia sitting at a corner table, reading a magazine.

‘I’m sorry,’ began Helen, hurrying across the carpet.

‘No, no, I came early, I like to settle in.’ She stood up and kissed Helen on the cheek. ‘How are you?’

Rafia wore Western clothes — tailored brown slacks, brown high-heeled boots, and a white cashmere sweater with a thick turtleneck — which surprised Helen, this collected, hip look.

‘Have some petits fours, Helen,’Rafia said, as the waiter approached the table. ‘They’re delicious.’ She sat back and lit a cigarette, looking at Helen with a hint of a smile, a friendly, appraising expression. ‘So, you’re going to the Loire,’ she began.

‘Though it’s strange to be leaving Paris — when I spent so much time wanting to be here.’

‘Sohail’s like that — he always wants to do the extra bit, the flourish. You’ll be back in Paris another year. I’m glad for you.’

Rafia was gentler than she had been at their previous meetings — even the clothing was less assertive.

‘Somehow it’s difficult for me to think of myself as someone who will do all these things, travel and live in other countries.’

‘One of the things that I like about you, Helen, if you don’t mind my saying so, is that you don’t assume those things. But I know you will have a life in the big world. You’re the right kind of American, the Americans who went to the moon. And the Americans of Hawthorne and Robert Lowell — the Puritans and the prairie.’

‘Hawthorne and Lowell are more Puritan than prairie.’

‘True. I suppose you are also.’

The waiter brought the tea and a silver dish with a selection of delicate petits fours. Rafia took one, holding it distinctly with her long fingers.

‘Would you like to talk about Sohail?’ asked Helen.

‘Yes. Though that’s not the only reason I asked you here. I also wanted to have a real moment with you. Quite aside from Sohail, I respect you, and I envy your freedoms. In your life you’ll have solid things, and you’ll have them more solidly than I did.’

‘And we both wonder where Sohail fits in.’

‘You tell me.’ Rafia said this softly. ‘Is he one of those solid things?’ She placed her elbows on the table, joined her hands together, and touched her lips with her fingers, the gesture masculine, her eyes bright. Watching her, struggling to keep up with her, Helen marveled at how quickly Rafia could transform herself.