Rupert Thomson - Air and Fire

At that moment her father noticed her, and he smiled and rose from his chair, saying, ‘Ah, and here, at last, is my daughter —’ And she had to pretend to be moving forwards, forwards into the room.

But what she had imagined did not happen. Nothing happened. She could not understand it.

At the Chantilly Derby that year, wearing a new dress (moon satin, daring for the afternoon), she had accepted compliments from no fewer than eleven members of the nobility, including a distant cousin of Napoleon III and a count from the Piedmont in Northern Italy, eleven pairs of lips had brushed the back of her mauve kid glove, but she could remember sitting in front of her triptych of mirrors after yet another desolate encounter with Théo and fingering her dark-blonde ringlets and thinking: What is it? What is wrong with me? For the truth was, he did not seem to see her. He just did not seem to see her at all. Autumn came, and she lay in bed like a stone, not even blinking.

In desperation she consulted her closest friend, Lucille, who was two years her senior and had more experience of the world.

‘Lucille?’ she said. ‘Am I ugly?’

Lucille stared at her, and then she began to laugh. She had a pretty laugh — like a bell, men often said — but that day it had grated.

‘It’s not a joke, Lucille.’

‘It has got to be.’

‘Just tell me the truth. I want to hear the truth.’

‘You’re beautiful, Suzanne. Everybody thinks so. I always wanted to look like you.’

Suzanne told Lucille about Théo.

‘Perhaps there is something wrong with him,’ Lucille suggested. ‘Perhaps,’ and she lowered her voice, ‘he doesn’t like women.’

Suzanne shook her head. ‘He was engaged once. My father told me.’

Lucille sighed.

When she left that afternoon she took Suzanne’s hand in both of hers. ‘Men can be slow sometimes,’ she said. ‘Men can be blind.’ She kissed Suzanne on the cheek. ‘He will come round, don’t you worry. He will come round in the end.’

And he did, of course. In the end.

She felt cold suddenly. She moved closer to Théo in the bed — gently, imperceptibly, so he would not wake — until she could feel his warmth against her belly and her thighs. It was no reflection on her that he did not make love to her more often. He was under pressure, that was all. He had so much to do.

She wedged a pillow between her knees and brought the sheet up to the soft hollow between her chin and her lower lip. I am married to the man I love, she thought, and let the thought repeat itself, over and over, until the sweet wine cut her moorings, and she slept.

17 Calle Francesa, Santa Sofía, Lower California, Mexico

30th April, 189–

My dear Monsieur Eiffel,

It is two weeks since we arrived in Santa Sofía, and I am pleased to report that things are at last beginning to run smoothly. During the past two days I have been supervising the final stages of unloading. All the longitudinal elements are now laid out on site in the usual manner, along with the majority of the end posts and tie bars, and I find myself marvelling once again at the intrinsic simplicity of the system 1 B 24, 5 B 48, etc. upon which all our endeavours are based. We have employed dry foundations, sinking to a depth of just half a metre; given the quality of the subsoil in El Pueblo and the nature of the shearing forces in this particular structure, there seemed no necessity to ensure against unequal settling. With the aid of Monsieur Castagnet, the timbering expert, we have fashioned a crude but satisfactory mast and a number of simple hoisting gins. Tomorrow we should be able to lift the first of the central arches into position.

I am aware that much of the above may sound pedantic, but it is a measure of our predicament. In a country as primitive as the one in which we find ourselves, nothing can be taken for granted; we must be grateful for small mercies. Though I have assembled a workforce of twenty-two men, they are, for the most part, Indians and have difficulty interpreting even the simplest of my directives. It is the clear and systematic methods on which our company prides itself, curiously enough, that seem to present an obstacle, since the ways of the native people are pervaded throughout by every conceivable illogicality and confusion. The most common word in their vocabulary is ’vara’ which, literally translated, means ‘nothing’. They come and stand before me, and when I ask them why they have come, they say ‘Vara.’ If I then ask them what they want, they reply again, ‘Vara.’ It is quite maddening. Yesterday I received three successive ‘Vara’s from one man before I was able to elicit from him that he wanted to know when to report for work on the following day! At this point we were plunged abruptly into a new quandary, one that stemmed from differing approaches to the concept of time. Most of the Indians can only count to six, some only to three. (No Indian can say how many fingers he has; his reply will always be, ‘Many.’) Since we could not communicate the idea of five o’clock in the morning we had, in the end, to settle for ‘early’ or, in the revised version, ‘much early’. You are probably far more acquainted than I am with these frustrations, Monsieur, and I realise that I will have to learn that most irksome of virtues, namely patience. If current progress is anything to go by, the project is unlikely to be completed before June.

As you can see from the letter heading, we have moved into our new home. Though sparsely furnished, it is perfectly adequate, and Madame Valence is finding a hundred small ways of rendering the interior more pleasing, as only a woman can. She has bought two rugs from a Mexican trader to brighten the bare wood floors, and fills the rooms with various species of cactus which are, she claims, a substitute for flowers. In the absence of any paintings, she will no doubt hang her own! She is so occupied at present that I scarcely see her from dawn to dusk. Our neighbours have shown us every kindness, especially the Director of the company himself, Monsieur de Romblay, who is a most personable gentleman and a raconteur of some note. I will endeavour to keep you informed of our progress, such as it is, and hope this letter finds you, as always, in the very best of health.

I remain, with the deepest respect, Monsieur, your most humble servant,

Théophile Valence.

Suzanne had only met Captain Montoya once, at the welcoming banquet in the last week of April, and they had exchanged no more than the few required sentences, yet she had suspected, even then, that he would fall for her. It had not been hard to predict this infatuation; she had seen the signs in the mournful slackening of his face as he gazed at her across the table, and in the reverence with which he bent over her gloved hand and brushed it with his lips when she departed. Since that evening she had not thought of him at all except to smile when she remembered how Madame Bardou, the epitome of modesty and decorum, had caught a glimpse of his plumed hat on the chair and let out a shriek because she thought a cockerel had found its way into the room.

Then, one afternoon, she was woken from her siesta by a knocking on the door. Her maid, Imelda, always returned to her parents’ shop in El Pueblo after lunch, so she was alone in the house. She drew a silk peignoir over her chemise and fastened her hair in a casual knot at the back of her head. It was the most silent hour of the day, and not a time when anyone would think of visiting. She assumed that it was Théo; he must have forgotten his keys. She stepped out into the corridor that ran through the centre of the house.