Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

We climbed the stairs, my feet stumbling on each step. I held on to the banister, seeing only her body swaying before me, magnificent, bewitching, almost dreamlike in its gracefulness. As we came to the landing, she stopped in the dazzling radiance of a skylight, and it was as though her dress disintegrated and I could see every detail of her perfect figure.

She turned suddenly and found me in a state of shock. She quickly realised that I was incapable of following her much farther, that my legs were about to give out under me, that I was like goldfinch in a trap. Her smile was the coup de grâce. She came back towards me, her step light, floating, and said something I did not hear. Blood was pulsing in my temples, making it impossible for me to think. What’s the matter, Monsieur Jonas? She placed her hand on my chin and lifted my head. Are you all right? The whisper of her voice was lost in the throbbing uproar of my temples. Is it me that has you in this state? Perhaps she was not saying these things, perhaps it was me, though it did not sound like my voice. Her fingers moved over my face, I felt the wall at my back like a barricade obstructing any attempt at retreat. Monsieur Jonas? Her gaze swept over me, conjuring me away as if by magic. I was dissolving in her eyes, her breath fluttered about my breathless panting. When her lips brushed against mine, I thought I would shatter into a thousand pieces; it was as though she had obliterated me, only to refashion me with her fingers. It was not a kiss, but a glancing, hesitant touch – was she testing the waters? She took a step back, and it felt like a wave rolling away, revealing my nakedness, my confusion. Her lips returned, more confident now, more assertive; a mountain stream could not have slaked my thirst as she did. My lips surrendered to hers, melted into hers to become a flowing stream, and Madame Cazenave drank me down to the last drop in a single, endless draught. My head was in the clouds, my feet on a magic carpet. Frightened by the intensity of this pleasure, I must have tried to draw away, because I felt her hand hold me hard. I let her pull me to her, offering no resistance, feverish, willing, astounded by my own surrender, my body joined to hers by her invading tongue. With infinite tenderness, she unbuttoned my shirt and let it fall to the floor. My every breath now was her breath, my heartbeat was her pulse. I had the vague sensation of being undressed, being led into a bedroom, of being laid on a bed deep as a river. A thousand fingers exploded against my skin like fireworks; I was light and joy, I was pleasure at its most intoxicated; I felt myself dying even as I was reborn.

‘Could you come back down to earth a bit?’ Germaine scolded me. ‘You’ve broken half the crockery in the house in the past two days.’

I realised that the plate I had been rinsing had slipped from my hands and shattered at my feet.

‘Your mind is elsewhere . . .’

‘I’m sorry . . .’

Germaine looked at me curiously, wiped her hands on her apron and put them on my shoulders.

‘What’s the matter, Jonas?’

‘Nothing, the plate just slipped.’

‘I know . . . the problem is, it’s not the first one.’

‘Germaine!’ My uncle called her from his room at the far end of the corridor.

I hardly recognised myself. Since my encounter with Madame Cazenave, my mind was elsewhere; it was sounding the depths of a euphoria that seemed endless and eternal. This was my first experience of being a man, my first taste of sexual discovery, and I was intoxicated by it. My body was tight as a bow; I could still feel Madame Cazenave’s fingers moving over my skin, her caresses like a thousand tiny cuts gnawing at the fibre of my being, trilling through my body, becoming the blood pulsing in my temples. When I closed my eyes, I could still feel her breathless gasps, and my whole being was flooded with her intoxicating breath. At night, I did not sleep a wink; the memory of our lovemaking kept me restless until dawn.

Simon found my change of mood infuriating, but though Jean-Christophe and Fabrice fell about laughing at his jokes, his jibes could not touch me. I was like marble. I watched them laugh, unable to understand what was funny. How many times did Simon wave a hand in front of my face to see if I was awake? At moments like this I would come alive for a moment, only to sink back into a sort of trance, the sounds of the world outside suddenly dying away.

On the hill, in the shade of the olive tree or on the beach, I was now an absence among my friends.

I waited for two weeks before summoning the courage to go back to the big white mansion on the road to the marabout’s house. It was late; the light was failing. I left my bicycle by the gates and stepped into the courtyard . . . and there she was, crouched beneath a shrub with a pair of secateurs, tending to her garden.

‘Monsieur Jonas,’ she said, getting to her feet.

She set the secateurs down on a mound of pebbles and wiped the dust from her hands. She was wearing the same hat with the red ribbon, the same white dress, which, in the light of the setting sun, faithfully described the charming contours of her body.

We stared at each other, neither of us saying a word.

I found the silence oppressive; the drone of the cicadas seemed loud enough to split my eardrums.

‘Bonjour, madame.’

She smiled, her eyes wider than the span of the horizon.

‘What can I do for you, Monsieur Jonas?’

Something in her voice made me fear the worst.

‘I was just passing,’ I lied, ‘so I came up to say hello.’

‘How very sweet.’

Her brusqueness left me speechless. She stared at me as though waiting for me to justify my presence; she did not seem to appreciate my intrusion. It was as though I was disturbing her.

‘You don’t need to . . . I just thought . . . I mean, if you needed help with carrying things?’

‘I have servants to do that.’

Having run out of excuses, I felt foolish, felt that I had ruined everything.

‘Monsieur Jonas, you shouldn’t turn up at someone’s house unannounced.’

‘I just thought—’

She brought a finger to my lips, interrupting me.

‘You shouldn’t think.’

My embarrassment turned to a sort of dull rage. Why was she treating me like this? How could she behave as though nothing had happened? Surely she knew why I had come to see her.

As though reading my mind, she said:

‘If I need you, I will let you know. You must learn to let things happen, you understand. To rush things is to ruin them.’

Her finger gently traced the line of my lips, then parted them and slipped into my mouth, lingering for a moment on the tip of my tongue before returning to rest on my lips once more.

‘There is something you need to understand, Jonas: with women, these things are all in the mind. They are only ready when their thoughts are in order. They control their emotions.’

Not for a moment did she take her resolute, regal eyes from mine. I felt as though I was a product of her imagination, a plaything in her hands, a puppy she might order to roll over so she could tickle its tummy. I had no intention of rushing things, of ruining any chance I might have. When she took her hand away, I realised it was time for me to leave . . . and to wait for a sign from her.

She did not walk me back to the gates.

I waited for weeks. The summer of 1944 was drawing to a close. Madame Cazenave no longer came down to the village. When Jean-Christophe called us all together and Fabrice read his poems, all I could do was stare out towards the white mansion on the hill. Sometimes I thought I could see her working in the courtyard, could make out her white dress through the heat haze on the plains. At night I would go out on to the balcony and listen to the howl of the jackals, hoping it might fill the yawning silence of her words.