Richard Ford - Women with Men

“I think you're afraid of me. But for another reason now,” Helen said.

“No, you're wrong,” Matthews said with certainty. “I'm not afraid of you at all.” He pulled her closer, felt the silk over her shoulders, took in the warm and slightly pungent aroma of her body. He could've made love to her now. It would've been easy.

“Then what do you feel?” she said. “About me, I mean.”

“I love you,” Matthews said. “That's how I feel.”

“Oh, don't bring that into this,” Helen said. He could feel her go limp, as if he'd insulted her. “Dream up something else. Think of some better words. Those weren't supposed to be in our deal.”

“Then I don't know what else to say,” Matthews said, and he didn't know.

“Well, then don't say anything,” Helen said. “Share the happy moments in silence. Leave words out of it.”

“I'm supposed to be good at words.”

“I know,” Helen said, smiling at him thinly. “You can't be good every time, I guess.” She kissed him on the cheek, had a quick look back at the snowy night, then took herself to bed.

IN THE NIGHT, Matthews slept deeply again, a sleep that knew nothing, a sleep like death. Though after a time he knew he was asleep and wanted only to stay. He was aware of Helen leaving the bed, dropping something on the bathroom floor, saying something, possibly a laugh, then finding the bed again.

He slept until he needed to use the toilet and got up. But when he'd finished he put his face to the little bathroom window, which gave onto the air shaft. The snow, he saw, had stopped, and moonlight again was bright. Everything joined at the backs of the buildings, and some draft of air was making a flap of tin or steel rattle softly below. Across the open space he could see a lighted apartment, where four people — young French people, of course, two women, two men — were sitting on couches, talking and smoking cigarettes and drinking beers out of glasses. The light inside was yellow, and the room next to the sitting room was lighted also. There was a bed there with coats laid on top, and on the side opposite was a bright kitchen, with a window box of what might've been red geraniums. What time was it? he wondered. These people were talking so late. Or possibly he hadn't slept long, only deeply. He was sure, though, that soon he would see one pair depart and the other two begin straightening the house and preparing for bed. It would be satisfying to watch them, and not to see them undress or make love or argue or bicker or embrace, but just to watch them do the ordinary things, go about life as always. It would be so telling to see that. Over the years, he felt certain, others had done what he was doing: watched — perhaps watched these very people — and stolen about these strange rooms at late, undetermined hours, feeling desolate. Elated. Angry. Bewildered. Then taken some satisfaction to bed again. He shared this experience. Probably even with Langston Hughes — he didn't know why he'd thought of him — but with many others. They had all done this, in Paris, in this very bathroom. You only had to be here to share it.

Walking back into the dark sleeping room, he felt, in fact, elated and didn't want to go to bed again, though he was cold. An unusual spicy, meaty cooking smell came from somewhere. He thought he heard a voice laughing and the snap of shuffled cards. The room had moonlight in it, and the air was light and luminous. He sat in the chair and stared up at the Arab art, then stood and looked more closely — at the camels, the oasis, the men sitting talking. It all fit. The drawings were subtler than he'd realized. He had thought of this room as a pit, a hole, a cheap and dingy last-ditch. But he felt better about it. He could stay here. If Helen went on, or went home, he could take the room for a month. Things could change. The hotel would take on another character under other circumstances. He could provide a table and write here, though he had nothing in mind to write (Madame de Grenelle might prove important for this). Though there was no way to know until you tried. He'd seen photos of the rooms of famous artists — almost always in Paris — and they were all worse than the Nouvelle Métropole. Worse by a multiple of four. Yet in retrospect they seemed perfect, each a place you'd want to be, the only room that this novel or that poem could ever have been conceived in. You trusted your instincts. That was all. He tried to think of the line that ran through his head from time to time. Where was it from? He couldn't remember the line now, or who had written it.

He looked at Helen, sleeping. He came close, leaned over her, put an ear near her face to learn if she was there still, heard her breath, brief and shallow. She took pills. They could take you away. He would need to find a doctor tomorrow. There would be some numbers to look up in a book.

She was wrong, he thought, to keep him from disclosing his love. That had been what he felt and should've been allowed to say. Love was never inappropriate; it hurt nothing. It was not, of course, the spiritual thing she'd asked for, nothing like that. If he'd said “love” then, she'd have burst out laughing.

Somewhere down in the street a loud sound erupted, a pop, but a pop that was also a boom, like nothing he'd exactly heard before. He sat again, very still, waiting for other noises, following noise, his thoughts interrupted.

Helen lay as she had, on her side, though her eyes were open. She was staring at him, just seeing him.

“Why are you awake?” he said softly. He got down on his knees by her and touched her face, touched her cheek, which was cool.

“What are you doing?” she said without moving, almost inaudibly, then sighed.

“Just sitting,” he said.

“Tomorrow seems like an odd day, doesn't it?”

“It'll be fine. Don't worry about tomorrow,” he said.

“Are you sleeping?” She closed her eyes.

“Yes,” Matthews said. “I am.”

“You should,” she said, and slipped to sleep again in just that fragile moment.

Matthews sat back and waited a moment, listening for more noises out in the street. A siren or a horn blowing, something to add a rhythm to the other noise, the boom. He heard a car move down the snowy street, skid briefly, its brakes applied, and drive on. And then he came to bed, thinking as he crawled in from the bottom, along the cold plaster wall, that he would never sleep now, since his heart was pounding, and because in truth the day to come would likely be, as Helen said, a strange day.

WHEN HE AWOKE it was ten-thirty. Light through the window was brighter than he'd expected. A stalk of yellow angled across the tiles to his shirt, where it lay from the night before.

He put his trousers on and went to the window. There would be an entirely new view of Paris, he thought. The room wasn't as chilled. He had slept well and long.

And he was correct. The snow from the night had all but gone. A few irregular patches remained in the cemetery and on a parked car or two in the street. But it seemed spring suddenly, the sycamore trunks damp and darkened, the ground soaked, a light fog rising off the gravestones as the sun found them, making the cemetery a park. Of course, there was no sign of the man who'd slept in the tomb. He couldn't distinguish which one it had been, and thought it might've been a dream. He'd drunk too much. Even Rex and Beatrice seemed figmentary — bad dreams one ought just as well relinquish.

Helen lay perfectly still, her head under her pillow, no sign of breathing in the covers. For the second time — or was it the third — he leaned to listen. Her breathing was strong and deep. She could sleep until afternoon. She was weak, he thought. Rest would be her ally.

But what was he to do until then? Read one of her police mysteries. Sitting by Helen's bed reading while the city warmed and turned (perhaps only briefly) more agreeable would be the wrong thing. Too much like a hospital: wanting to be there when the patient woke up from the surgery. There wasn't any surgery; there wasn't anything. It was possible Helen was only jet-lagged. Or that because she was experiencing the change of life she exaggerated her symptoms. Something involuntary. That had happened to his mother and driven his father crazy. Then one day it had stopped. He didn't know if Helen had cancer or was experiencing pain. You only knew such things with proof, had seen the results. There were the bruises, but they could have simple explanations — not that she was lying.