A Sport and a Pastime

stopped beneath the viaduct that day. He knew no one. He was going to be here for a week or two, not more.

[24]

PRANGEY. THE VILLAGE IS poor. As they turn off the road, chickens scatter before them, and then a course of trees appears to indicate the way. They cross a little bridge and drive in, beneath the towers. A dark entry to a white court. On the far side, the huge country house where they will stay, a piece in the stone necklace that is strung across all of France, the piers upon which her history is founded. They have opened their doors to travelers, these chateaux. They have become hotels. The great rooms, eloquent in their calm, may be taken by anyone, rooms that have seen the light and darkness of centuries. People can now walk around them in underclothes, lie in the beds like drunken servants.

The door closes. They are alone. It’s a vast room with many mirrors. Anne-Marie looks in the bath. Enormous too, and beneath its windows a moat filled with frogs. She takes off her shoes. The carpeting is blue. No sound but the countryside. Birds. The hum of spring. On the wide bed they are soon at work, skillfully, silent as thieves. They are deep in a sumptuous dream in which they have discovered one another.

The sky is pale and drained of heat. In this silence like folded flags, Dean’s awareness of things seems extraordinary. He puts his prick into her slowly, guiding it with his hand. It sinks like an iron bar into water. Her eyes close. Her voice is cut adrift.

Minutes. The gravel of the court whispers. Raising up a little, Dean is able to see out the window which is partly open. There are voices. A large family has returned from walking in the gardens and now, amid laughter, begins to arrange itself at the tables while the waiter, in a white coat and black trousers, serves them. The women want Perrier. The men take wine. They are just below—the nearest ones can’t be seen. The talk, only a bit dissevered, rises up as if to include him. He withdraws somewhat to watch, taut, supported by his arms, just the tip of his prick inside her. He looks down along his belly to affirm it.

They fuck in lovers’ sunshine, in the midst of the party. Her flesh gleams like fabric, intermixed with glimpses of women in silk dresses grouped around the table, children, a friendly dog. The noon hours are drifting away. The waiter brings more ice. It seems to last for hours. They are united by a bloodstream which carries the same sensations. He is nourishing her, touching her heart. When he comes, it’s as if a marvelous deception has ended. Afterwards she kisses his prick. His balls. The people have gone. The waiter is alone in the court below, collecting the glasses.

That night they dance in Dijon, in the boite where we saw her first. It’s her idea. I’m a little surprised by that. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that she would prefer not to encounter the past, but she seems not to mind. It means nothing to her. The sweat shines on their faces as they move. The armpits of her dress are stained. They drive back at midnight with the top down. It’s cool. The roads are empty. The great, worn front of the house is dark, and they park on the expiring gravel. Legs weary, they climb the stairs.

Dean is looking at himself in the mirror while she undresses. He is naked. He stands full on, his hands at his sides. He sees himself as a different person. He is delighted with his thinness, with his hair which is too long, and with the triumphant reflection of himself. He is aware of her moving about behind him, but it is his own nudity he is interested in, a nudity which the glimpses of her presence make thrilling. He discovers himself in her presence, that’s the thing. It is the reflection all others must play against. He is pleased with himself. His prick seems murderously large.

“How do we make love tonight?” she asks.

She waits. She is able to summon up all of the black countryside that surrounds them, silences in which every object, every form is at rest. The invisible leaves—the night is filled with them—brush one another lightly. The grasses are still. If one listens closely: the trickle of water below the windows, down a face of rock and into the green scum. The sound of a frog. In the heart of this, in a tall room with its curtains drawn against morning they lie, the faint acid of sweat dried on them and other wetness as well, clear, caking. They were too tired to rise afterwards. They sleep without moving, the blanket drawn over them against the chill of dawn.

[25]

THE RELICS OF LOVE: the title of a page in his notebook. Many entries make no sense. There’s a code, of course. Every diarist invents one. When I die, he writes, I would like it to be in a city like Nancy.

Under Ideas he has:

1. When to leave.

2. One meal at a time.

3. Three immortal things: virtue, words, deeds.

And there is a long list of towns, some with a star (Bourges, Montargis). After Malene is written: long summer. Names of many cheeses.

The relics of love. His phrases appear spontaneously among mine. Of course I am aware of it, but one must know when to appropriate. He doesn’t need them, and for me they are essential. Walls—I mean foundations—would literally crumble without them. For the want of them, entire structures might disappear.

They considered many summer towns. Eze and La Baule. Le Zoute. Arcachon. Finally they decide to drive the Loire. A hot afternoon. It is not yet dark. In the cool of her room they lie like fish in the shadows of a bank. Dean unfolds the map. The shutters are drawn. Some workmen are fixing the rain gutters outside. The sound of their tools, their casual voices close by, is alarming, as if they might suddenly open the room like a tin can and discover the occupants. Dean is completely dressed, but she is almost naked. Her flesh seems polished. The pale nipples look soft as fraises des bois.

Yes, the Loire. They are talking in whispers. He smooths out a crease in the map. The great chateaux loom blue as peaks along the silent river. They will go in May, late in the month. Chambord rises from its forest. Chenonceaux is a bridge of sun-filled rooms. One looks down from the iron balconies of Amboise a thousand feet above the town, balconies from which the Protestants were hung. They will drive to Angers and then on to the sea.

“I think he must love me,” Anne-Marie tells her mother.

They are alone in the kitchen. The mother is not sure. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

“Si,” her daughter insists.

“Perhaps.”

It’s irritating to Anne-Marie. She’s very proud. To the mother it is unsettling. One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish. There are many things to fear, things her daughter may tell her about if she remains patient, if she is wise enough not to ask.

“Well, I think he may love you…”

“Oui,” Anne-Marie insists.

“…but will there be any reason left for him to want to marry you?”

Anne-Marie shrugs.

“There are reasons,” she finally says without conviction.

“He doesn’t work…”

“So…his father is rich.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Then it’s not the same,” Anne-Marie says, impatient.

Her mother reaches across to touch her hand, but she has risen and is looking at herself in the mirror. There she finds all she needs. She turns her face a little this way, then that. The sea will appear before them, washed in sunlight. They will walk along the rocks. The white birds rise up lazily as they approach. All the hotels of the coast