Until.
I don’t belong here.
Yes, that’s it. That’s it precisely.
It takes her a few seconds to realize that she was not the one who had said it (she thought it was the voice inside her head). There is someone else on the sofa. And this person says it again.
I don’t belong here.
Before the new year discovers them locked in an unexpected embrace that will turn out to be amazingly sweet and delicious (Adam will think of his father, of their wooden house, of the silence of the forest on a snowy night, he will like her scent of vanilla and freshness; Anita will think of her parents, a jazz tune on a piano, she will like his scent of timber and salt: they will feel good), before the countdown to midnight is yelled by everybody at the tops of their voices, at the other end of the house, before they look at one another for the first time, she will finally smile at that repeated “I don’t belong here” and will reply:
Welcome to the club, my friend.
An oddly matched couple
YOU COULD CALL THEM AN ODDLY MATCHED COUPLE. He is very tall with fine chestnut-colored hair that turns gold in sunlight. His body is slim, knotty in places, and his long-distance-runner’s legs are superb. His face is fairly ordinary but there is something in his gaze that inspires trust, an openness, a show of innocence. She is petite with black hair that reaches to her waist. Her face is round, the color of gingerbread, her skin is as smooth as a baby’s, her brow is wide, her eyes shine when she speaks. She does not know how to swim, he does not know how to climb trees. He loves rugby, she does not begin to understand it. He talks to her about the “poilus” in the trenches, the resistance, about André and Maurice, his absolute heroes; she tells him the story of her great-grandfather arriving on the island of Mauritius to take over from the slaves on the sugar plantations. She finds it unthinkable that anyone could eat headcheese, he finds it unthinkable that anyone should eat hot peppers; he finds the expression “a woman of color” quite charming, she thinks it is the language of colonialism; he does not know what a banyan is, she would not recognize a stone pine.
They live in a studio apartment on the third floor of a squat building behind the Gare du Nord train station. The walls are vivid yellow. Each has a corner to work in. Over here an easel, a stool, tubes of paint, palettes, brushes, canvases, over there a desk, notebooks, books, pens. They are amazed at how they are able to work and create side by side. They are convinced that this rare ease is one of the reasons why they have made the right choice, one that will endure and flourish.
In summer the light bounces off the yellow walls and the two of them feel as if they are living inside the sun itself. They make love on the floor, they fall asleep almost naked on a quilt decorated with images of the setting sun, a fisherman, and a leaping swordfish, with perfectly arched sprays of water.
But summer is far away now. This is early January and freezing rain is falling outside. Anita wakes up. A certain haziness envelops her, something rather like a blurred photograph. It is that special moment, delicate and fleeting, between night and the early hours before dawn. Anita places a hand upon her stomach. She is pregnant.
From time to time bursts of freezing rain beat against the window. Anita thinks the sound resembles that made by the first drops of rain on a corrugated tin roof, but she is not certain. This doubt causes her to frown—she is used to memories, comparisons, and parallels flooding in easily, she is used to her mind functioning swiftly and well, to it traveling to and fro between here, this city, and back there, that island. Since she left Mauritius almost ten years ago, she has returned to her island only once, she went with Adam. That was three months ago, her father, Philip, had just died. For thirteen days Anita did not say a word to Adam, did not weep, and asked only questions of her mother. She would rise at dawn, take her shower, gulp down a cup of tea, and go out. Because she had not been able to see him, to touch him, because the mound of the grave, the white cross, the plants in pots, were not her father, Anita wanted to comprehend everything. She opened a new notebook and embarked on a long, exhausting investigation. She questioned her mother, the neighbors, the priest, the fisherman, Alphonse, who had found her father’s body, policemen, her mother all over again. She covered page after page with her tiny, tightly compressed handwriting. She spent almost two weeks dissecting seconds, fitting minutes together, going back over gestures, analyzing actions, stopping time. She worked like a laboratory technician, split second by split second. She wanted to know how a man who wakes at 5:00 every morning and has followed the same rituals for decades (hot lemon juice, thirty minutes of yoga, fifteen minutes of exercises, a cold shower, breakfast on the veranda with his wife) can die like a dog in the gutter, one Sunday morning on his way to 7:00 mass.
Philip had chosen to wear chocolate-colored pants and the white shirt with the Mao collar he was particularly fond of. He had put on moccasins and was wearing his beige panama hat with a ribbed hatband the color of tobacco. His elegance had not
